How an Austin Candle Maker Turned Her Search for Better Ingredients Into iluxir
Akriti Marwaha’s hand-poured candles invite moments of calm, with scents for morning rituals and evening wind-downs
For Akriti Marwaha, founder of the local luxury candle brand iluxir, burning candles at home was simply a personal ritual long before it became a thriving business.
In 2022, while working as a software engineer, Marwaha’s mother-in-law was diagnosed with stage-four cancer and moved in with Marwaha and her husband so that they could assist with her care. At that time, they began taking a closer look at the products and materials used in their daily lives.
“That experience really changed the way we looked at our home,” she says. “We started looking at toxins in the house, shifting from plastic to glass or stainless steel, eating healthier and just doing everything we could.”
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Finding cleaner ingredients
When Marwaha started seeking cleaner, non-toxic candles, she wasn’t satisfied with the options, finding many of the scents to be very weak. That led her to start experimenting with candlemaking herself. She sought information about different waxes and fragrance materials, searching for quality, premium ingredients while learning the craft through hours of YouTube tutorials.
“I did a lot of research and tried different types of wax, including beeswax and soy wax, and finally landed on coconut-apricot wax,” Marwaha says. “It’s completely vegan. It’s more expensive as a material than many other waxes, but it holds fragrance really well.”
What began as experimentation eventually became iluxir, a hand-poured home-fragrance brand centered on cleaner materials and the idea that fragrance can elevate ordinary moments into something more intentional.
Of course, the leap to entrepreneurship from software engineer was gradual. She started by selling handmade candles at local markets and pop-ups, slowly building a following while still working in tech. In 2025, she left her job to focus on iluxir full-time. Her engineering skills became a major advantage as she built the brand’s website herself, customizing everything from customer experience to backend operations. The analytical mindset that once solved technical problems now guides her through the challenges of building a business.
Beyond building a toxin-free brand, Marwaha explains that iluxir’s concept is: rituals over routine. “I want people to think of iluxir as an extension of their day-to-day life,” she notes.
Romanticizing your life
Rather than naming scents after familiar fragrance categories, Marwaha builds them around specific moments in the day. Morning Ritual, with palo santo, incense and sandalwood, is designed for the beginning of the day. At the same time, other scents, such as Nightfall with eucalyptus and amber, are intended for evening wind-downs, which she says, “is the perfect way to end your night. If you’re reading at night, drinking your tea and having that candle burning, it’s like romanticizing your life.”
The connection between scent and memory is also part of the magic for Marwaha who also sells diffusers and room sprays. A fragrance can become associated with a particular place, person or moment, allowing something as simple as lighting a candle to become a small, meaningful marker in the day.
The brand’s mission also extends to education, encouraging people to be more conscious of what they bring into their homes and what they burn there. The brand shares educational content through its website and Instagram, with an emphasis on helping consumers understand the ingredients in home-fragrance products. Marwaha is passionate about connecting with like-minded people who are “working on themselves”, she says, “pursuing a more non-toxic lifestyle, focusing on their bodies, their mental health and becoming the best version of themselves.”
Shop local
Today, she still makes the candles herself at her home studio, while iluxir marks its biggest milestone yet: a launch in 67 H-E-B stores across Texas in October.
For Marwaha, this expansion is about more than retail growth — it’s about building a true local brand that becomes part of people’s everyday lives. “I really believe in building a community. The brand that really does that best in Texas is H-E-B. We could have put that effort into other retailers as well, but I wanted to put that effort here so that we could have that feeling of community in Texas.”
With every candle poured, iluxir aims to weave itself a little deeper into the fabric of Texas life, helping people turn routine into ritual as a movement toward more mindful, intentional living.
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