About Ash + Ruin

ASH + RUIN WAS CREATED from a determined reverence for chaos. The winter of 2020 was bleak, each morning bringing with it a fresh new horror. Trapped inside, society sought comfort in new habits. Some people baked bread — we lit candles. Every day, for months on end. We found solace in the atavistic smells of smoke and ash and took delight in watching something beautiful be slowly and reliably consumed by a flame of our own creation. As the world burned and society imploded, quarantine was furiously and hurriedly commodified. Candles were marketed as a method of escapism, crafted with blandly soothing colors, sans serif typefaces, and scents designed to transport the buyer away from their painful reality. This did not sit well with us. We set out to design a candle that symbolized our disgust with this insipid and purposefully innocuous aesthetic, something as dark and strange as our apocalyptic reality. We craved gothic archness, a reverence for entropy. Existential dread elevated to an aesthetic. Something that captured the exquisite experience of living in a dying world. And so, Ash + Ruin was born. We reject the notion that lighting a candle should aim to distract us from the chaos and suffering inherent to life. Make the spark of combustion a daily rite for your ceremonial rejection of the self-care zeitgeist. Lean into the darkness. Greet the inevitable pain of mortality with anticipatory relish. Repeat as necessary. Read their story