DOMVS Enterprise Club - Issue 1 - Winter 2017

Get some
Hygge in
Your Life
Scandinavia seems to be all the rage at the
moment; Scandi-Drama is the latest TV
sensation, Scandinavian furniture is (still)
the home decor must-have, and Scandinavian
food, well, a good Danish open-faced sandwich
is a thing to behold! Now, in more and more
areas of life, we are coming across the concept
of ‘Hygge’ (even auto-correct recognises the
word!).
So what is hygge, and why has it become so popular? Loosely translated, in the way that many of these words are when they relate to a
concept rather than an object, it means ‘cosiness’, but that is to do the concept a disservice, for it is really far more than that. It is family,
good food, warmth, comfort, contentedness, all rolled into an easy five-letter package. What’s more, autumn and winter are the perfect
hygge time of year. In the UK, it’s at this time of year, with its uniquely British combination of drizzle, sun (combined with freezing cold),
and evermore inconsistent temperatures, that we start to retreat indoors, Hygge is the perfect antidote, designed to make you feel warm
inside, despite the outside’s ever-increasing unpredictability.
Purbeck’s Perfect Hygge
Melting wax on our old AGA in a rented cottage overlooking Corfe Castle, blending
essential oils and creating natural candles in vintage teacups would eventually become
the Purbeck Candles we are today. To be honest, not a lot has changed. We still blend
and pour everything by hand here in this beautiful part of Dorset, but instead of filling
teacups and random glass jars, we now have a wonderful range of tinned candles, as
well as stunning glassware and our very popular reed diffusers.
Creating our blends using pure essential oils, building a fragrance layer by layer,
creating a scent that people love just gives me such pleasure. I want to help people
create a wonderful home environment that invites and envelopes everyone who enters
in a beautiful natural aroma!
All of our candles and reed diffusers are packed full of wonderful natural ingredients
and fragranced using 100% pure essential oils, nothing else is added. Every product is
blended and hand poured in beautiful Dorset to be enjoyed everywhere...
There’s alchemy in creating something magical from basic natural ingredients, taking
that passion and turning it into a luxury product. From humble beginnings, creating
beautiful scents by blending essential oils at the kitchen table, melting soy wax on the
AGA and creating stunning natural candles in a Dorset country kitchen, we have grown
to having a range of incredible products that can now enhance a home anywhere in the
country.
A natural home fragrance range, imagined, designed and created in Dorset using 100%
natural ingredients. It can only be Purbeck Candles.
How does one become, or should it be create Hygge? Hygge can be many things, or, perhaps more accurately, one can feel Hygge from
many things. Try starting by adding some blankets and cushions to your bed and sofa — you cant feel Hygge with cold toes! If you have a
wood-burner or fireplace, light the fire. Warming, slow-cooked comfort food is another good place to start (we have a wonderful recipe on
page 15 that should hit the spot), and returning home to that smell of a wonderful home-cooked meal is guaranteed to make you feel hygge.
In fact, smell is a key part of feeling hygge — and it goes beyond food. Smell is an often-overlooked yet key sense when it comes to making
us feel comfortable. It’s amazing how smell can become associated with particular events or times of year — how often have you caught
the scent of orange and cinnamon and thought of Christmas, even in summer? Fire is also particularly important; Scandinavian homes,
and Finnish ones too, are often full of candles. Fire seems to have a primeval effect on human beings. Campfires have come to be known
as ‘bush TV’, presumably because we cannot help but gaze at open flames. One can only imagine it must stem from a time when fire really
did mean protection, warmth, and food — something hardwired in our evolutionary DNA.
So Hygge is smell, warmth, fire,
and food? It’s more than that.
Hygge is also about how you live
your life, about focusing on what
is in front of you, rather than what
you’re aiming for or what has yet
to come. The next time you go for
a walk, focus less on how far you’re
aiming to go and more on the wind
in the leaves, the birds in the trees,
and the ground beneath your feet.
Getting back to nature is incredibly
important to hygge.
Even our daily habits can be heavily
influenced by hygge. It is even
changing people’s eating habits;
many espouse eating four meals
a day rather than three, to make
mealtimes more evenly spaced.
Devotees report feeling more
energised throughout the entirety
of the day, which is certainly an
attractive prospect. It seems hygge
is a concept well worth exploring,
and a craze we should hope is here
to stay, for the good of all our wellbeing.
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