More than ever before it's really important to shop small this Christmas and support our small independent businesses and that's why I'm back for the third year running with another Christmas gift guide for 2022. Double the impact of giving this festive season by gifting thoughtful presents whilst also strengthening the small businesses of the UK - what could be better?
With a range of gifts for everyone from candles to jewellery, I'm sure you will be able to find a gift for your friends and family from this hand-picked guide.
We are kicking off this gift guide with 'Calm' gifts for your mind and well-being. These gifts are perfect for mothers who might need a moment of calm, friends who need your support or maybe a family member who has a stressful job - we've got them all covered!
I would love to see what well-being gifts you have chosen for this year, give the gift of calm and peace at a time that can be stressful for many! Don't forget to tag me and the brand on Instagram, you can find me at @small_business_collaborative.
Mythyn
Mandarin, Bergamot & Patchouli essential oil wax tablet. Scented wax tablets are designed to infuse botanical aromas within small spaces inside the home.
The warm ambient temperatures trigger the release of their essential oil blends from the hard wax, scenting their surroundings and beautifying them at the same time.
You open your wardrobe to find an outfit or accessory to fit your daily intentions – natural scents have the power to soothe the mind and ground it, helping you to clarify your emotions.
I keep mine inside my wardrobe where I store towels and sheets and it smells so good!
Meet Small Business Owner Mathilde: Natural artisan bath, skincare and relaxation experiences formulated & handcrafted in our rural atelier in Bedfordshire to lower stress levels, infuse moments of joy, and improve wellbeing. We believe that bringing nature back into our daily rituals creates a greater sense of connection and engages our senses into the here and now.
Price Range: £7-35
Website: https://mythyn.com/
Follow on Instagram: @mythynofficial
The Mood Club
The Mood Club inspires people to embrace new positive habits to boost their mood and improve their wellbeing. Our products and online classes are designed to encourage people to focus on the bright side of things, thrive in every area of life, and face daily challenges with a positive attitude.
Our Mood Cards for work are designed to empower you to find the right work/life balance, improve your wellbeing and resilience at work, fulfil your potential and find your purpose.
The set contains 20 practical activities that can be done in a few minutes, but have a long-lasting impact as they teach you to embrace positive habits and reduce stress in the workplace.
Meet Small Business Owner Fede: My name is Federica - Fede and I have a philosophical background and a Master in Social Ethics, and I have been working in the social sector for the past 6 years, supporting mental health organisations in achieving system change.
I set up The Mood Club because I want to inspire people to get into a positive mindset, a way of living by focusing on the good things, looking at the bigger picture and avoiding overthinking.
Price Range: £2.50-15
Website: https://themoodclub.com/en-gb
Follow on Instagram: @the.mood.club
LoveWell
Our fresh lemon and soothing rosewood candle can help to boost your mood and bring calm to any room in the house. With the balancing and uplifting properties of rosewood essential oil, along with lemon, which can help to reduce anxiety and depression, and mint, which is revitalising and stimulating, the fresh aromatic scent will create a restorative atmosphere to nourish mind, body and soul.
Made with pure essential oils and ethically sourced soy wax. Nothing else but nature’s goodness.
Our indulgent massage candles are the perfect way to care for and hydrate your skin as they can be used as a nourishing body oil. To get the best from your massage candle, light it, wait until a small melt pool has formed around the wick, then blow out the candle and drizzle a small amount into your hands, or directly onto skin.
Emily and I kept this lit during our shoot and the whole studio smelled amazing!
Meet Small Business Owner Claire : Run by Co-Founder and CEO Claire Dormand, Lovewell’s Mission is to create supportive pathways into employment for women who have experienced significant trauma through trafficking and exploitation.
As an organisation, we offer transformative training and support, for women to grow in confidence, increase their skills, abilities and self-worth enabling them to move confidently into employment. Everything from our range of wellbeing products is lovingly handmade and packaged by our women whilst they are taking part in our 6-month paid Work Well Training Programme.
We are a community interest company, and by purchasing our products, you can know that 100% of profits go back into the work we do.
Price Range: £12-32
Website: https://lovewelluk.com/
Follow on Instagram: @lovewelluk
The Foxglove Tree
Botanical Cast Fragrance Diffusers allow you to bring a little piece of nature into your home. Each piece is hand cast from real plants and flowers capturing all the tiny intricate detail of each petal and leaf.
Each design is infused with vegan-friendly, cruelty-free fragrance oil and supplied with a 3ml top-up bottle of oil.
A range of gorgeous fragrances and designs are available to choose from. Individually boxed in eco-friendly packaging they make beautiful gifts and are a decorative and sustainable way to fragrance your home.
I love anything that smells nice and my home fragrance collection is pretty impressive. I love that this is re-usable.
Meet Small Business Owner Clare : Hello, My name is Clare and I am the person behind The Foxglove Tree. I am mum to 3 gorgeous kids and 1 crazy dog. Living with my husband in an old rambling house with a wild garden in the heart of the Lincolnshire Wolds.
Taking inspiration from my garden I aim to capture Mother Nature’s beauty with botanical casting so the best each season has to offer can be brought into our homes and cherished.
Price Range: £2.50-700
Website: https://thefoxglovetree.co.uk/
Follow on Instagram: @thefoxglovetree
Ede
If you struggle to find time for yourself daily and want to start creating gentle moments of kindness for yourself, then ede can help. The In my feelings aromatherapy gift set is a union of the first three roll on therapists that I launched with ede. burnout, morning brew, and best day ever are the seedlings of my vision to make aromatherapy feel more relatable and approachable to those who perhaps hadn't considered it a tool to look after yourself by using language that we use now to match our 21st-century feelings.
Having personally experienced how your mental health can affect your skin. ede is a reminder that making small moments of 'you time' is the most important thing you can do for yourself and I'm proud to be supporting many UK mental health charities. Maybe it's only one minute of massaging organic essential oils into your anxious chest or rolling the aromatherapy oils to your pulse points and taking a deep breath, ede exists to create mindful moments for your real-life routines.
Meet Small Business Owner Eve : In 2015 I began blending my first face oil that helped me calm my sensitive and spot-prone skin. Since then, my mission has been to help others feel worthy and confident in their own skin. The skincare and beauty industry is laden with dos and don'ts and 10-step routines that I think can be overwhelming and all-consuming.
The vision behind ede was to create thoughtful plant-based products that work in line with the skin's natural function to look after itself and to help people make informed and positive decisions for their mind and skin.
Price Range: £5-70
Website:https://www.theedestore.com/
Follow on Instagram: @theedestore
Dook
The original and some say best dook salt soap. It smells like the world’s best spa experience. Herbal, but not like a wholefood shop; zingy, but not minty. Addictively refreshing – like taking a dook in a crystal clear sea.
In 2018, after years of making cold processed soap with traditional ingredients, we added Himalayan salt to our recipe and realised we had something special on our hands. These salt soaps are a fantastic product: the salt adds a beautiful colour and texture, is rich in skin-loving minerals and creates a firm, long-lasting bar. Put simply, these are brilliant soaps and we are extremely proud of them.
Dook was probably the first soap bar company I came across on Instagram, seeing Helen pour these beautiful bars fascinates me and it's so nice to see that the range has grown and now there's even a brick and mortar shop to visit in Edinburgh.
Meet Small Business Owner Helen : Dook is a small, artisanal company based in Edinburgh, Scotland. We make salt soap in small batches using organic ingredients, essential oils and natural colours.
Each batch is mixed and poured by hand resulting in distinctive, high quality hand and body soap.
Price Range: £7.90-35
Website: https://dookofedinburgh.com/
Follow on Instagram: @dook_soap
KIŠH Studio Jewellery
KIŠH Studio is a contemporary crystal jewellery line for the modern and mindful woman. Consciously hand-crafted in-house using natural crystals and precious metals, KIŠH Studio pieces are designed to gently remind you to trust your intuition and manifest healing energies into your everyday life.
Designer, Lou Rhodes cleverly combines inspiration from ancient worlds with a feminine and modern aesthetic. Each design is available in either Sterling Silver or Gold Filled with various different crystals to be added to the collection mindfully.
IŠHARA Hoop Earrings ~ Tibetan Quartz is a super powerful gemstone, wear it to align and balance all of your energies. It's the perfect stone to protect you from any negative energy you might be feeling and enable you to harness the power of positivity! It's also the perfect crystal for meditation ~ helping you raise your consciousness and find spiritual awareness whilst also keeping you grounded.
Meet Small Business Owner Lou : Prior to starting KIŠH, I worked as a womenswear designer for over a decade. I really loved that job but the effect it was having on my health was just horrific. My heart was pushed to the limit, literally with panic attacks and anxiety as well as emotionally.
Making the move from London to the seaside town of Margate in search of a happier and more balanced life was the catalyst for a new path. I’ve started on a bit of a soul-searching and self-healing journey, of which this jewellery line is part of.
Price Range: £29-165
Website: https://kishstudiojewellery.com/
Follow on Instagram: @kishstudiojewellery
Kodes
Kodes are handcrafted bold geometric jewellery pieces designed to express your personality and creativity by making an accessible statement investment that will still be lightweight. The range includes hand painted wooden geometric pieces, necklaces and earrings made with silicone beads and also Art Deco acrylic geometric jewellery.
With this hand painted wooden diffuser necklace you can take your favourite essential oils with you. The porous nature of the Lava stone acts as a natural diffuser and the essential oils will be your perfect aid against anxiety and many more symptoms.
The perfect match for this necklace Kodes own Essential Oil pure blend 10ml Roller – with Lemongrass, Bergamot, Clary Sage & Patchouli. This can be applied directly to the skin, on pulse points or on your diffuser necklace. Made with 100% pure aromatherapy quality essential oils blended with Fractionated Coconut Oil (FCO), containing NO synthetic chemicals or additives.
Meet Small Business Owner Morena : Morena is the designer-maker behind Kodes, a handmade jewellery brand that she started in Tottenham in 2015. Kodes are statement jewellery for people who like to express themselves.
Having had Alopecia Universalis (an illness which causes all your hair, eyebrows and eyelashes to fall) since she was 12 years old, Morena started Kodes from the need to express herself through jewellery, something she realised she had been doing for years, as a way to make up for not being able to express herself through (the lack of) her hair.
Price Range: £18-46
Website: https://kodes.me.uk/
Follow on Instagram: @kodes_accessories
Healing Alternatives
Our best selling bath salts are made with Dead Sea Salt Flakes, rich in magnesium and 21 other minerals which improve joint mobility, soothe aching muscles and nourish the skin. The salt flakes are expertly blended with organic CBD oils, English Lavender and Clary sage. The perfect antidote to the everyday stresses of modern day living. An ideal Christmas present or a generous stocking filler for friends and family.
Our cornerstone ingredient is CBD renowned for it’s numerous health benefits which we have extracted from the hemp plant. CBD is perfectly safe to use and is completely legal in the U.K. All our products are made in small batches using only natural ingredients and the very best essential oils, which are cruelty-free and vegan, Paraben and Sulphate free.
I tried CBD before but not bath salts, so yesterday I tried this bath salt after a long weekend walk, it was so relaxing, smelled amazing and my body feels less stiff today.
Meet Small Business Owner Veronica : Welcome to Healing Alternatives. We are a family-run brand based in the Surrey Hills specialising in wellness & beauty products made from plant botanicals.
Our collections include natural organic balms, creams and our legendary bath salts plus a small collection of products for around the Home. We have recently launched a dedicated Sleep Collection to meet the huge demand from customers looking for a restful and restorative nights Sleep. We are proud to have been shortlisted for Best Natural Beauty Brand in the UK Wellness Awards this year.
Price Range: £10-90
Website: https://healingalternatives.co.uk/
Follow on Instagram: @healingalternativesuk
Mount Sapo
This all-over-oil renews both face and body, supporting the healthy function of your skin. A nutrient-dense blend of plant oils, Mount Sapo was made to help realign out-of-balance bodies through the simple gesture of touch.
It’s a hardworking, multi-purpose oil that can be used as a body oil, face oil, hair oil, oil cleanser, beard oil, bath oil, massage oil and more!
Mount Sapo has been specifically formulated to be airy enough for your face. Made with lightweight oils that won’t clog pores, it leaves skin replenished with a velvety finish.
100% Certified Organic (COSMOS Soil Association Certified). Handmade in the UK. Cruelty-Free. Vegan.
Meet Small Business Owner Serena : Mount Sapo was founded by Serena Wise, after years of working long hours as an Art Director that left her feeling depleted. After spending so much time with a perpetually occupied mind, she had the sense of being increasingly disassociated from her body. It was this that led Serena to create Mount Sapo all-over-oil, to make good use of the simple gesture of touch. Finding at least a bit of time to get out of her head and tune into her body, nourishing it with a blend of organic plant oils and her own fingertips, has become an essential part of every day.
Price Range: £20-38
Website: https://mountsapo.com/
Follow on Instagram: @mountsapo
If you'd like to see the full Christmas gift guide for 2022 please visit this link.
Did any of these calming Christmas gifts catch your eye? Do you have somebody in mind for a calming face oil or healing bath salts to give them a 5 minutes of peace back? I would love to hear if you have supported any of the small businesses featured so don't forget to tag me over on Instagram, @small_business_collaborative.
Thank you so much to all the brands who got involved this year. I've loved discovering so many new brands and as usual kept a lot of things on my Christmas wish list.
If you also enjoyed the photography use in the gift guide then I'd like to give a huge shoutout to Emily - we had a lovely shoot at her home, creating these amazing images and if you'd like the same for your business then she is kindly offering all gift guide readers a discount if you book before the end of 2022.
You can find her offers on page 16 of the gift guide or below:
