Rachel Scott left behind her career as a model in Mayfair to up sticks with her husband, Philip, and go back home to Yorkshire. Now she spends her days candle making, surrounded by a gaggle of geese, a pack of cockapoos, and a collection of beehives
Many of us dream of retiring to the countryside to tend to donkeys, collect fresh eggs and possibly even take up bee keeping, maybe even start a small business too, but for one woman based in Darley, North Yorkshire, this is her everyday reality.
Rachel Scott never imagined that a fun little hobby would turn into a business so in-demand that former Spice Girls such as Mel B would be raving about her candles, but a simple gift bought for her two daughters did exactly that. ‘Someone bought the girls a little candle making kit one year and I did it with them and thought it was quite fun,’ she explains. ‘So, then I started making my own, just as a hobby, I never planned for it to be a business!’
Starting out by gifting to friends and family, Rachel soon realised she had a knack for creating beautifully scented candles. Fast forward to over a year later and she now has a production line set up in a spare room of her house and sends out hundreds of orders each week. Every element, from the candle making down to packing the order, is done by Rachel herself, even ensuring she uses only paper packaging and eco-friendly tape, to keep in line with the nature-inspired philosophy of the brand.
It's this level of detail that’s made Meadowfarm Lifestyle so successful. As a self-confessed perfectionist, Rachel explains that ‘once I start something I become quite obsessional, so if I’m doing something I need to do it properly.’ Queue candle making courses and staying up into the early hours as she consumed every book on the subject that she could possibly get her hands on.
Some of you reading this may have done a course yourself at some point, maybe as part of a hen do as I did once. Therefore, you wouldn’t be mistaken for thinking it’s quite a simple process – you just need to get the wax to the correct temperature, put a wick in a glass jar, add some smelly essential oils, let it set and hey presto, you have a candle! The science behind it, however, is a far more complex, especially if you want to create something utterly gorgeous, that’s going to burn for hours and fill your home with just the right amount of scent – not overpowering, headache inducing, or so completely unnoticeable you’ll wonder if you even lit it at all.
It took months of experimenting with eyewatering amounts of time and money spent on perfecting her product. ‘I thought this is impossible as it’s a simple process, but it’s not easy to get them right,’ Rachel tells me, as she explains how important it is to get the temperature of the wax and the material of the wick correct as sometimes a particular fragrance might not work with a certain wick. ‘I’m really fussy with what I use – some are 100% essential oils, some are high quality perfume oils, I always use soy wax which is sustainable and ethical, and I use the best ingredients possible - I’d rather make less profit, knowing I’ve put quality into the candle, than scrimp on the ingredients etc.’
I must admit that when I first came across Rachel’s brand, I thought it looked beautiful, but didn’t think much beyond that. It wasn’t until I walked into her home and my senses became enraptured by the stunning smells surrounding me that I understood it all.
If you’re familiar with the feeling you get when you walk into a perfectly scented shop or spa (it’s The White Company for me) and the calm it evokes, making you want to stay there all day, well that was exactly how I felt here. ‘One of my goals was to make sure that the scent throw was right – that I could actually smell it, but it not be over powering.’ If, like I was, you’re unfamiliar with the term ‘scent throw’ this refers to how faint or strong the fragrance flows through the air, as well as how much it permeates a space. Indeed, after a couple of hours sat chatting to Rachel in her showroom style kitchen, I could still smell the scent of her ‘Wildflowers’ candle as strong as when I first walked through the door. Yet the sweet-smelling tones of wild lavender, honeysuckle and sweet pea weren’t accompanied by a headache or sickness that some candles can induce – a feeling Rachel wanted to stay well clear of.
Inspired by her gorgeous surroundings in the North Yorkshire village of Darley, Rachel ‘got the scents fairly quickly’. There’s Citrus Mint which came from her herb garden, Yorkshire Bramble was inspired by the bramble bush that’s located in the field where her donkeys reside, the fig trees in her garden are to thank for Warm Fig whilst the wildflower patch located close by is the reason for Wildflowers, and her walks in the woodlands with her collection of cockapoos is what brought about Into the Woods. All of these scents are available as candles or diffusers, housed in gorgeous glass vessels with timeless, elegant designs.
If it all sounds rather dreamy, it is. This wholesome life came about after Rachel left behind her career as a model in Mayfair to up sticks with her husband Philip back to her home county of Yorkshire to be close to friends and family as they raised their two young daughters. More land meant they could add to their family with a drove of donkeys, a gaggle of geese, a pack of cockapoos, and a collection of beehives. It seems others want a piece of this idyllic lifestyle too, with an online following of 13k and counting, Weetons Food Hall are after their gigantic goose eggs, while Grantley Hall buy their in-demand honey from the hives.
When Rachel first started out, she went from her online store with Etsy to being stocked in a small interiors shop just outside of Wakefield before landing in the designer store Morgan Clare in Harrogate. After receiving rave reviews from esteemed fragrance journalist Alice du Parcqu of her Warm Fig candle followed by a lovely voicemail from former Spice Girl and fellow Leeds lass Mel B, she’s now set her sights on Harvey Nichols and higher . . .
‘I’d love to open a farm shop and be a mini-Daylesford’ Rachel enthuses as she speaks about the pioneering vision from Carole Bamford who set out to change the way we eat and grow by being more in-tune with the seasons. For the time being, however, Rachel wants to continue growing her brand and showing others how eco-friendly and sustainable products can still be luxurious. Handwashes and hand creams are currently in development, but Rachel explains that ‘these are really difficult to get completely right when they need to be 100% natural.’ An active beekeeper, she’s also looking to develop their honey offering, as well as adding in some chickens, ducks, and other animals to their ever-growing brood. We wouldn’t mind a slice of the Meadowfarm life ourselves!
meadowfarmlifestyle.co.uk
