Most candles on a shelf were poured once, into a mould, and left to set. Ester & Erik candles are built the slower way — dipped by hand roughly two dozen times each, in a Danish factory that’s been run by the same family since 1987. It’s a labour-intensive process for something as ordinary as a taper candle, and it’s exactly why the brand’s candles have developed a following well beyond people who just need something to light at dinner.
Who is Ester & Erik?
Ester & Erik was founded in 1987 by Erik Møller, after more than fifteen years working as an export salesman inside the candle industry gave him a clear idea of how he’d build one differently. He developed his own dipping machinery and a frame system for shaping taper candles, while his wife Ester took charge of quality control — checking dye, lacquer and packaging by hand before anything shipped. Their son Søren Møller took over the business in 2001 and has since introduced modern touches like robotics on parts of the line, but the core hand-dipping process has stayed exactly as his parents built it. The company now supplies more than 2,000 dealers across 55-plus countries from its factory in Silkeborg, Denmark.
Twenty-five dips, four to five hours, per candle
Every raw taper starts life as a plain wax core that’s dipped into warm paraffin roughly 24 to 25 times, a process that alone takes four to five hours to complete. After a two-hour cooling period, each candle is hand-coloured and lacquered, then left to dry and harden for a further 24 hours before it’s packed in FSC-certified materials. The wax itself is 100% pure paraffin, the wick 100% cotton, and the dyes and lacquers are water-based rather than acetone or aniline-based — details that matter less for how a candle looks than for how cleanly it burns. Every batch is quality-checked at each stage, from the frame and wax through to the final colour, lacquer and packaging.
Wax originals, and now a flameless range too
The cone and taper candles that built Ester & Erik’s reputation are still hand-dipped exactly as described above, sold individually or in sets across a genuinely large colour library. More recently the brand has extended the same original colourways into an LED collection — flameless pillar and taper candles with a lifelike glow, controllable via a simple four-timer remote — aimed at spaces where an open flame isn’t practical, like a nursery or a rental with strict smoke alarms. It’s the same design language across both ranges, just with a different candle underneath it.
Why the hand-dipping still matters
A few reasons Ester & Erik candles keep turning up on tablescapes rather than getting swapped for whatever’s cheapest:
- Genuinely hand-dipped in Denmark, roughly 24-25 times per candle, rather than machine-moulded in one pass.
- 100% pure paraffin wax and 100% cotton wicks, with water-based (not acetone or aniline) dyes and lacquers.
- Still a family business — three generations of the same family have run production since 1987.
- Packed in FSC-certified materials, with every batch quality-checked at each production stage.
- An LED version of the same colourways for anywhere an open flame isn’t practical.
Price and availability
Ester & Erik’s classic cone and taper candles start from around AU$16 each, with the LED range priced higher, from roughly $53 to $85 depending on size and style. In Australia, the full range — cone and taper candles through to the LED pillar and taper collection — is available through BEON. The brand is also carried by more than 2,000 dealers worldwide; its own site, ester-erik.dk, lists the full international range.
