Juneteenth

Notes: Eucalyptus, Spearmint, Peppermint, Clean Cotton, Ocean Breeze

It took awhile to decide which scent would do this candle real, true justice. Something that would capture the essence of what it must feel like to know you’ve been freed from a lifelong nightmare of enslavement, one that you, your whole family, your whole squad, your ancestors, and every single Black person you KNOW has lived and breathed as their only way of life since Creation. I wanted to honor the lives my own ancestors had lived and survived up until the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, then that anxiety-ridden time and space where they’d played the waiting game of ‘I heard we was freed but I don’t see no Freedom yet, wtf is goin’ on here??’, up until the day they were actually SET free in all the Union and Confederate states two. whole. years. later. 

I couldn’t rush through it.  It took me months to get the blend perfectly right. 

Today in the United States, we celebrate Juneteenth with cookouts, festivals, and community building amongst Black people around the country but we’ll never forget the real true meaning of the Juneteenth celebration. The real freedom day. That glorious June 19th in Galveston Bay, TX when the last of our enslaved people were finally let go. The relief of answered prayers; the joy of hope renewed; that Hold On, Help Is On The Way church shoutin' news that they had not been forgotten, and that even though their liberation had shown up late it was still right on time.