It is my pleasure to provide this article which has been contribued by the FABULOUS Lynn McCabe. Lynn presented on the Psychology of Candles at our September Unit Meeting and we loved every word. In case you missed it, here is the information in prose. Please take a few minutes to soak it all in. See if you can use some of it as you work your PartyLite magic at shows.
The Psychology of Candlescapes
by Lynn McCabe
The wonder and enchantment of a candlelit room, and the delicious experience of different textures on our skin, resonates deep within our psyche to produce feelings of peace and well being. The psychological mechanisms that create these feelings have been unlocked by researchers, and identified as beauty, touch, fragrance, colour, ritual, symbolism and scarcity (to name but a few). PartyLite offers not only beautiful products, but also the cues to trigger these mechanisms to create a wonderful psychological experience for our customers. The field of psychology is therefore a rich source of information about why we love our products, and useful factoids that can be applied to the selling of our candles. Here are a few examples:
1. Beauty
Beauty has a physical effect on us. It lifts our mood, it offers a lovely distraction from mundane thoughts and ruminations, and it motivates us to not only beautify our life, but to live it differently.
Research support: Research has found that people in ‘lovely’ environments rate their life satisfaction as significantly higher, and behave in a more socially pleasing ways, than those in ‘ordinary or drab’ environments. This is one of the reasons why money was invested in beautifying housing commission (council housing) estates in Britain. Beautiful surrounds have significant social consequences.
We treat beautiful people differently. For example, in the court system, attractive people have been found to be significantly more likely to receive lesser sentences than unattractive people. Beauty therefore appears to have a value that is hardwired into our thoughts and behaviours.
Studies of Gorillas in captivity have shown that these animals will forsake food rewards in favour of ‘visual beauty’ rewards such as a better view from a window.
Product application: All our beautiful accessories.
2. Touch
Psychologists agree that touch is essential for well being.
Research support: Orphaned babies who are touched are more like to survive and thrive.
Rats are licked by their mothers when born. In one experiment the newborn rats were taken from their mothers so they couldn’t be licked. They were then either left untouched or softly brushed by a human. The rats that were left untouched failed to thrive while those brushed by humans thrived. This demonstrates that the actual act of touching is essential to rats’ well being.
Harlow conducted an experiment where he took baby monkeys from their mothers and offered them surrogate ‘wire mothers’. The one surrogate was wire with a bottle of milk attached. The other had no milk but the wire was covered in soft terry toweling fabric. It was found that the babies clung to the soft fabric mothers in preference to the wire mothers offering milk. In other words, they chose the comfort of touch over food. Touch is therefore a must have, not a nice to have as once thought.
Product application: Massage oil, foot lotion, and other body products.
3. Fragrance & colour and their effect on mood.
Both fragrance and colour have been found to induce either positive or negative moods.
Research support: Human memory is made up of a network of codes. Every experience is coded by fragrance, mood and colour (to name a few factors). That is why you can smell a familiar fragrance and suddenly feel you have been transported back in time to the memory which was first coded with that fragrance. Likewise, negative moods are treacherous because once you start feeling sad, every sad experience is cued in memory which can lead to an exacerbation of the original sad feeling!
Similarly colour has been found to be linked to early memories and may trigger the positive or negative memories they are associated with.
In addition, colour has been found to affect mood, motivation and levels of stimulation. This is to do with many factors but light reflection is one. Brightness stimulates positive mood, and some colours are perceived as warm (while others as bleak). Such effects have been identified in disorders such as Seasonal Affective Disorder where people in countries where there are long, dark, winters, literally suffer depression from the lack of light and colour stimulation of their brains.
Product application: Positive moods can be induced by (1) warm flame light (all candles), (2) exquisite fragrances (wax, body products, linen spray, room spray, reed diffusers, etc.), and (3) rich and varied colours (wax and accessories such as the Moroccan Spice Lantern, etc.).
4. Ritual and symbolism
While we are sophisticated creatures there is a primitive core of our brain that likes routine and ritual. There is safety and assurance in this which is why symbols that represent the well being of a particular ritual are so powerful. The human brain is very efficient and can learn to affect physical change with just a single cue. For example, when we go for a massage, we do not need to have the complete massage to start feeling relaxed. Just the sound of the music, or the smell of the massage oil, cues the body to be relaxed, long before the massage begins.
Research support: Ritual - Babies thrive on routine. Rituals associated with processing grief in certain religions have been found to produce better psychological outcomes than no rituals.
Research support: Symbols - Single, representative cues can be enough to cause a chain of physiological effects. For example, hypnotists can give a single word cue to get people into a deeply relaxed state. Also, alcoholics start the physical changes that produce cravings when shown a mere symbol of drinking, such as a logo of an alcoholic beverage, or the sight of a bar mat, or the people they have previously drunk with.
Product application: The symbols from the well being range are an obvious shortcut to relaxation. Looking at one of the symbols tells the body the relaxing/revitalizing ritual is about to begin, and the individual’s physiology may change before the melt has even liquefied!
The act of lighting candles, and releasing lovely fragrances, can be a ritual of relaxation
5. Scarcity
From our primitive beginnings, humans have learned to desire and value things more highly when they are in short supply.
Research support: People have been found to more highly desire products that are not easily accessible which is why marketers successfully use words like “exclusive, rare, and limited”.
Product application: All specials, all limited offers, the seasonal catalogues, labour intensive/hand crafted/exclusive products e.g., striated candles, Global Fusion range, Elegance Hurricane, lead crystal, etc.
Conclusion
The way candlescapes help us decorate, celebrate, and illuminate is therefore no longer a mystery. They trigger a complicated series of intertwined, psychological mechanisms that give us a sense of joy, enchantment and well being. So, it is not a question of why, but rather… why wouldn’t people want to buy PartyLite!!
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