Upcycling Is Hot: Jill Zarin’s Candles Have More Than 1 Life for Conscious Shoppers

In her nearly 40-year career, Jill Zarin has sold everything from rugs and bedding to shapewear and jewelry. Now, the serial entrepreneur and original cast member of The Real Housewives of New York City is teaming up with her 28-year-old daughter, Ally Shapiro, to win over customers with the idea of upcycling.

To stand out in a crowded product category, the Jill & Ally co-founders have designed their candles to be used long after the wick and wax have burned away. That’s a new strategy for the mother-daughter team, who started their self-funded business in 2020 by selling face masks to chains like T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods, Burlington, and Ross during the height of the pandemic. As the economy reopened in June 2022, the entrepreneurs pivoted to a different product popular with stockists: candles. After more than 18 months on the market, their approach evolved once again after customers started voicing some choice feedback on TikTok in February.

“People wanted to also use our candles as decorative in the home, and people said you can’t upcycle these,” says Zarin. “The audience said: ‘We want no labels.’ I didn’t expect that.”

It was a counterintuitive approach for the reality television star, who has leveraged the power of her personal brand to acquire 700,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok. But for younger generations of climate-conscious shoppers, surveys have shown that the emphasis is on a product’s shelf life more than its logo. Today, more than half of consumers report it is extremely important to them that brands offer reusable products, according to a recent industry study.

The sustainability hack of repurposing used, old, or unwanted products into something new is not a novel concept. Even consumers who aren’t familiar with the terminology are likely already practicing it in their day-to-day lives. Plastic grocery bags become waste basket liners. Plastic takeout containers become a Tupperware replacement. Raggedy towels and T-shirts become cleaning rags. Wooden doors become desk tops. That’s all upcycling.

Eager to appeal to a younger cohort of shoppers, many brands have taken inspiration from bloggers and Reddit and started offering their own ideas for how to extend the life of their products. Bed Threads, a flax linen bedding brand, suggests nearly a dozen ways to reuse the drawstring cloth bags its sheets come packaged in, such as turning them into a toiletry kit, shoe bag, or packing cube to organize a suitcase. French jam brand Bonne Maman publishes an entire DIY blog dedicated to repurposing its famous red-and-white gingham topped jars.

For their upcycling-inspired redesign, which launched in March, Zarin and Shapiro stripped their candles down to basics, removing all adhesive labels and extraneous text. All product information and scent descriptions were relegated to the cardboard packaging. That way, the translucent glass holders, which are shaped just like stemless wine glasses and stamped with one-word affirmations — like “strength,” “bliss,” and “lucky” (also crowdsourced from social-media fans) — can be easily repurposed into drinking glasses after the candle burns out, without any need to peel labels or scrub off sticky residue.

Today, Jill & Ally candles are sold in more than 500 retail stores, including Nordstrom, Macy’s, and T.J Maxx. Having generated more than $40 million in retail sales since launching in 2020, the company reports that revenue is projected to increase by 300 percent this year.

A few simple design tweaks have become a major product differentiator, says Shapiro: “It leaves you with something when you’re done with the candle. It’s purposeful. It’s going to be integrated into your life.”

When that candle-turned-glass secures its spot in the kitchen cabinet, instead of being thrown out with the trash, the product life is extended, and the opportunity for brand awareness multiplies.

“Now, it’s literally a piece of decor,” says Zarin, who uses her old candles to store pens and pencils on her desk at home in Boca Raton, Florida. “You can burn the candle down and leave it for a long time.”