When se­lect­ing items for pur­chase, the lure of for­eign prod­ucts presents a con­stant strug­gle. We of­ten have to be re­mind­ed that choos­ing to sup­port lo­cal pro­duc­ers and ar­ti­sans not on­ly helps boost the econ­o­my but pro­motes con­fi­dence in our abil­i­ty to pro­duce our own and al­lows us to as­sert our in­de­pen­dence dur­ing un­sta­ble world trends. Be­sides, in our lo­cal prod­ucts, we find a con­nec­tion, a spe­cial in­gre­di­ent that tru­ly makes us Trin­bag­on­ian.

This week, we fea­ture lo­cal en­tre­pre­neur, apothe­cary An­drew Galt of Galt and Ma­ree Apothe­cary Ltd, who en­cour­ages us to ap­pre­ci­ate what's ours.

Apothe­cary An­drew Galt be­lieves that scents tell a sto­ry. Swayed by warm child­hood mem­o­ries, when faced with the choice of re­turn­ing to Cana­da or cling­ing to his place of birth, he chose the lat­ter. Through their el­e­gant hand-made scent­ed can­dles, he and his busi­ness part­ner, Chris­ti­aan Ma­ree, con­vey Galt's ex­pe­ri­ences of the sweet­ness of home.

Galt & Maree's Balandra Bonfire.

Be­fore you even en­ter Galt and Ma­ree Apothe­cary Ltd (G&M) in Mar­aval, pe­ony, tuberose and teak­wood tease your nos­trils. In­side, the hand­some ar­ray of 12.5-ounce can­dles in glass ves­sels be­neath the own­ers' art­work is cap­ti­vat­ing. So too are those in stacked ma­son jars lov­ing­ly wrapped in burlap and em­bell­ished with lace, atop rus­tic log fin­ish­es.

“Our scents at G&M are unique­ly ours. Every scent is based on mem­o­ry. The dif­fer­ent things that we do with our fam­i­lies, the dif­fer­ent places we go, they all trig­ger that mem­o­ry. With “Down the Is­lands,” you think about an af­ter­noon look­ing at the sun­set with your friends...some­body's hav­ing a san­gria, some­one else is wear­ing sun­block. It's just that kind of live­ly Tri­ni vibe,” Galt told Sun­day Guardian.

Cre­at­ed from non-GMO soy wax from Cal­i­for­nia and ex­ot­ic oils from Lon­don, Mar­seille (France), Japan, Dubai and Cal­i­for­nia, G&M's can­dles are com­plete­ly nat­ur­al and blend­ed to evoke the warmth and vi­tal­i­ty of T&T's flo­ra and fau­na as well as its peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties.

With names like “Mara­cas Sands” and “Ica­cos Or­chid”, the brand's 19 ex­quis­ite fra­grances are re­tired an­nu­al­ly and lat­er re-in­tro­duced to the line, ful­ly re­ju­ve­nat­ed with more com­plex notes, Galt said. Calm­ing “To­ba­go” has co­conut, lime, fruity ver­be­na, musk and a touch of am­ber.

“It's that kind of smell you get when you go in­to a ho­tel room. There are fresh sheets. The doors are open look­ing on­to the sea and you're just get­ting that ocean breeze. That's To­ba­go,” Galt mused.

“Sa­van­nah Lime” in­fus­es ve­tiv­er (a type of grass, the oil of which is used in per­fumes) with lime and mint. Its green, fresh ap­peal was in­tox­i­cat­ing when G&M in­tro­duced its prod­ucts to New York in 2019.

Andrew Galt, left and Christiaan Maree of G&M Apothecary Ltd.

“We start­ed in New York last year. At the mar­ket, Sa­van­nah Lime is what I had burn­ing and that at­tract­ed every­body to come to the booth. It's a love­ly scent. Smells like a mo­ji­to, has a nice earthy un­der­tone.”

Galt's favourite and a hit with his fe­male cus­tomers is the “Dame Lor­raine” which salutes the volup­tuous tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ter, gen­er­ous­ly-per­fumed in her Sun­day best. He loves its pe­ony which they get from Lon­don, de­rived from the fra­grant, colour­ful flow­er­ing plant. The can­dle's scent is full-bod­ied with un­der­tones of Ara­bi­an oud (a dark, fra­grant, ex­pen­sive wood used in per­fumery) and san­dal­wood.

Ever a favourite to bright­en and per­fume the am­bi­ence, scent­ed can­dles are es­teemed for more than their aes­thet­ics. Such prod­ucts pro­vide aro­mather­a­py, chang­ing the en­er­gy of your space and help­ing with heal­ing, Galt ex­plained.

“It's made to be a har­mo­nious ad­di­tion to your space. We have a scent called “Laven­der Eu­ca­lyp­tus” with fig and spearmint. It's a nice pick-me-up, a per­fect spa scent. As soon as you light it you feel re­laxed. Peo­ple want to es­cape, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing this COVID, and cer­tain scents trig­ger that.”

For a nice, warm mood, there's the “Ba­lan­dra Bon­fire” made with cedar, jas­mine, san­dal­wood and am­ber. It holds a spe­cial place in his heart, Galt, 33, ad­mit­ted, as it was in­spired by fond child­hood mem­o­ries of vis­it­ing the beach with his par­ents and two sis­ters.

It was in fact the emo­tion­al draw and beau­ty of his home­land that caused Galt to move back to T&T while vis­it­ing in 2012 af­ter eight years study­ing and work­ing in Toron­to.

“The Pines, a log cab­in that over­looks all of Port-of-Spain, is one of the rea­sons that led me to come back. It's beau­ti­ful and you could rent it then. It was see­ing places like that, see­ing my fam­i­ly, that made me want to move back home.”

Fol­low­ing some rough fi­nan­cial times, Galt would pur­chase a can­dle-mak­ing kit in Christ­mas of 2016 that would be the birth of their apothe­cary.

“We al­ways loved scents and thought maybe this was some­thing we could do. So we start­ed mak­ing can­dles and test­ing them with friends and fam­i­ly. It was great. Peo­ple start­ed to like what we were do­ing.”

Hav­ing his spinal cord par­tial­ly sev­ered by a falling 70-pound speak­er amp in June the fol­low­ing year served to clar­i­fy his vi­sion for the busi­ness...and his life.

“I think that was the time I re­alised that I want­ed to do some­thing com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent with my life and be­came fo­cused on the can­dle-mak­ing busi­ness. All of us seem to strive to have this reg­u­lar 9-5 job where we don't re­alise our po­ten­tial. I have a back­ground in e-com­merce man­age­ment and com­mu­ni­ca­tions and I al­ways thought you had to work for some­body, make mon­ey and be rich. I re­alised I had to do some­thing that I loved and for that, I put my pas­sion in­to the can­dles we make and it's re­al­ly re­ward­ing.”

At G&M, Galt im­mers­es him­self in mar­ket­ing and de­sign, while Ma­ree, an op­tometrist by pro­fes­sion, who stud­ied Bi­ol­o­gy and Chem­istry, acts as the main chemist. In their on-site lab, they com­bine oils and oth­er in­gre­di­ents, work­ing 16-18-hour days. Galt has a keen sense of smell and is able to analyse fra­grances with ease. His skill comes in handy when some­one wants them to repli­cate a favourite per­fume or cologne in a scent­ed can­dle.

With heavy de­mand for their prod­ucts this year, Galt has en­gaged the help of his par­ents, Nicole and Nicholas. For their Christ­mas line, G&M has blend­ed Frank­in­cense, rose, suede, to­bac­co and myrrh to cre­ate “Away in a Man­ag­er” and oth­ers like their warm “Christ­mas Spice” which com­bines ap­ple, cin­na­mon, car­damom and clove. Galt is es­pe­cial­ly proud of their “Christ­mas in Paramin” which has plum, am­ber and pome­gran­ate and “al­most smells like sor­rel.”

The com­pa­ny has done cus­tom scents for wed­dings and pri­vate la­bels. Galt said they were fo­cused on con­stant­ly el­e­vat­ing their brand to be a pow­er­house on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket. Mi­a­mi and Lon­don are their next stops and they are cur­rent­ly test­ing hand lo­tions, soaps and room sprays, which they plan to launch next year, right here in T&T, he said.

BOX

Q&A with en­tre­pre­neur and apothe­cary An­drew Galt

What's the rea­son for us­ing soy in your can­dles?

If you use paraf­fin or a blend, that's ac­tu­al­ly can­cer-caus­ing. We pride our­selves on us­ing non-tox­ic in­gre­di­ents. We use com­plete­ly nat­ur­al prod­ucts that are safe for you, your skin. If you have chil­dren around you don't feel there's any dan­ger to them.

It's al­so be­cause soy wax is not as flam­ma­ble as paraf­fin wax. It burns at a low­er tem­per­a­ture there­fore the can­dle is go­ing to last a lot longer. The av­er­age can­dle we have is 12.5 ounces and burns for 70 hours. If you use paraf­fin, the same size can­dle is go­ing to last three or four hours.

Any lo­cal oils you use?

We try to source as much ma­te­r­i­al down here as pos­si­ble. Some­thing we would like to do in the fu­ture is to start har­vest­ing our own oils, maybe in a cou­ple of years.

What about your hottest sell­ers?

“Café Tarou­ba.” We used to have the best cof­fee in the world com­ing from that one re­gion in Trinidad. It's a strong espres­so cof­fee blend, with hazel­nut and vanil­la. “Ica­cos Or­chid” would be an­oth­er one. Fun­ni­ly enough (in 2017), I went dri­ving down South and head­ing to Ica­cos I saw or­chids on the side of the road. The beau­ti­ful sun­set would have been in­spi­ra­tion enough that day, but I was like: what about the Ica­cos or­chid? Peo­ple think of Ica­cos and think of the beach, but there's a lot of beau­ti­ful flo­ra and fau­na around. I've added not just or­chid, there are mag­no­lia and lo­tus flower in there, rem­i­nis­cent of that kind of pic­turesque swamp­land.

And your most out­ra­geous or­der?

(Laughs) Peo­ple have giv­en me carte blanche with cre­at­ing a scent. I ask peo­ple what are they like, their favourite colour and that helps me build a pro­file of that per­son. Some­times I do mas­sive can­dles; two and a half feet tall mo­tifs in glass ves­sels. They're 45 pounds and last like 1,500 hours.

What's your fond­est mem­o­ry tied to a scent?

I grew up go­ing to Ba­lan­dra every week­end as a kid. It holds a lot of good mem­o­ries. We used to have bon­fires on the beach at night and roast marsh­mal­lows and tell scary sto­ries. Every­body wants to be a kid again and that's the rea­son be­hind the “the Ba­lan­dra Bon­fire” can­dle. It has a back­ground fire­wood smell, but it has al­so the sweet­ness of Jas­mine.