The creator pack.
Everything you need to make something with us, in one place.
We work with a small number of people at a time. If the way we make things sits well with the way you make things, we would like to hear from you.
The brand in three lines
- 01
Claudi's is a small fragrance studio in Mossel Bay, on South Africa's Garden Route.
- 02
Everything is hand-poured in batches of twenty-five, for boutique hotels, weddings and homes that notice the difference.
- 03
We make a short range properly rather than a long one quickly.
How we talk
Words we use
hand-poured · small-batch · studio · slow · considered · Garden Route · boutique
Words we avoid
artisanal · luxury lifestyle · game-changing · must-have · obsessed · detox · clean-burning as a health claim
The second list is not a style preference. Most of it is either a claim we cannot support or a word that has been used so hard it no longer means anything.
Tags
- Always
- #ad #gifted
- Whichever fits, in the first line — and the platform's own label as well. Not optional.
- Ours
- #claudiscandles #pouredinmosselbay
- Useful, pick what fits
- #gardenroute #southafricanmade #proudlysouthafrican #slowliving #boutiquehotel #weddingdecor #handpouredcandles
- A few, chosen. Stacking all of them reads as reach-chasing, which is the opposite of what we are going for.
The kit
Built fresh each time you download it, from the same brand system the website runs on. The catalogue is read from the live shop, so its prices and sizes are today's.
Guidelines & policies
- Brand guidelinesPDF
The brand in three lines, the words we use and avoid, the palette and typefaces, how to use the logo, and how to shoot a candle. Start here.
- Platform policiesPDF
One sheet per platform — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook and blogs. What to disclose, how the platform wants it disclosed, and what goes wrong there.
- Giveaway expectationsPDF
If you want to run a giveaway with our product: who supplies and ships the prize, what the Consumer Protection Act expects of a promoter, and the line we ask to appear in your rules.
Logos & wordmark
- Logo packZIP
Every lockup in four treatments including white for dark backgrounds, as SVG and PNG, with the palette as text and CSS and a README covering clear space.
- The mark on its ownSVG
The candle mark as a single SVG, pure geometry. Recolour it by editing the fill.
Colour & type
- Palette as CSSCSS
Custom properties, ready to paste. The same values the site itself is built from.
The range
- The cataloguePDF
The whole range as it stands today, with sizes, burn times and retail prices — generated from the live shop, not a file somebody remembered to update.
Templates
- Content templatesPDF
Caption openings, story frames, a video structure, the brief we work from and what we need back. Every one stops before the opinion.
Shooting a candle
Your eye is the reason we asked. This is the little that we have learned, not a shot list.
Light it
An unlit candle is a product photo. A lit one is a room. Most of what we reshare has a flame in it.
Daylight, or close to it
Warm indoor light turns the wax orange. Near a window, an hour or two after sunrise or before sunset, is the easiest good light there is.
Show the label once, then stop
One frame where the label is legible is enough for people to know what it is. After that the candle can just be part of the room.
Leave room for the caption
Negative space above or beside the candle gives us somewhere to reshare with text, and it reads calmer in a feed.
Please do
- Disclose it in the first line — #ad or #gifted, plus the platform's own paid-partnership label.
- Tag @claudiscandles so we can find the post and reshare it.
- Show the candle in a real room, in daylight if you can. Styled, not staged.
- Keep a lit candle attended, on a heat-safe surface, clear of fabric and greenery.
- Link to the product page rather than quoting a price — prices and stock both move.
- Say what you actually think. A quiet, honest post is worth more to us than an enthusiastic one.
Please don't
- Don't claim a candle treats, cures or relieves anything. No sleep, anxiety, headache or allergy claims — those are regulated, and neither of us is licensed to make them.
- Don't film or photograph an unattended flame, or a candle near curtains, greenery, a sleeping person or a child.
- Don't state prices, discounts or stock levels.
- Don't re-use our photography as your own work.
- Don't run paid advertising behind collaboration content without asking us first.
- Don't bury the disclosure in a comment or below the fold.
Platform by platform
Every platform has its own disclosure control, and a hashtag is not a substitute for any of them. The short version for each place you might post.
Everywhere, whatever the platform
- The disclosure comes first, in the first line or the first thirty seconds. Not after a fold, not in a comment, not in a bio.
- Say what you actually think. If it is not for you, say that instead of saying nothing — a quiet honest post is worth more to us than a warm dishonest one.
- No health claims. A candle does not treat, cure, relieve or help anything, and neither of us is licensed to say it does.
- No flame left unattended on camera, and nothing burning near fabric, greenery, a child or a sleeping person.
- Link to the product page instead of quoting a price. Prices and stock both move.
- Tell us before you run paid media behind a collaboration post.
Disclosure
Turn on the paid-partnership label in the post's advanced settings and tag us as the partner, AND open the caption with #ad or #gifted. The label alone is easy to miss on a muted scroll; the hashtag alone is not the platform's disclosure.
What we expect
- One in-feed post or Reel, plus a story sequence if a story is where your people actually are.
- @claudiscandles tagged in the post itself, not only in the caption, so it reaches our tagged tab.
- A story link or product tag to the specific product page rather than the homepage.
- The first line of the caption carries the disclosure. Not the third, and not after the fold.
What to avoid
- Stories that expire before we have seen them. Add them to a highlight or send us the frames.
- Reposting our grid photography as your own in-feed content. Stories with a credit are fine.
- Comment-to-win mechanics on a collaboration post unless we have agreed a giveaway in writing.
Format — 4:5 in feed, 9:16 for Reels and stories. Shoot wider than you need — a candle cropped at the rim loses the vessel, which is half the product.
TikTok
Disclosure
Use the Branded content toggle under 'Disclose post content' before you publish. It cannot be added afterwards without deleting and reposting, which is how most creators lose a good video.
What we expect
- One video. Length is yours — a fifteen-second pour and a two-minute room reset both work.
- The brand said out loud or shown on screen at least once. Audio-only mentions get missed on mute.
- #claudiscandles in the caption so we can find it.
What to avoid
- Trending audio with lyrics that undercut the product. It is a candle, not a punchline.
- Filming a lit candle unattended for a time-lapse. We will not reshare it, and it is the single most common thing we have to decline.
- Claims about sleep, stress, anxiety or focus. TikTok's own wellness policies and ours agree on this one.
Format — 9:16, filmed in daylight if at all possible. TikTok's compression is unkind to warm low light, and the wax goes orange.
YouTube
Disclosure
Tick 'Includes paid promotion' in the video details so YouTube shows its own disclosure card, and say it in the first thirty seconds. A description-only mention is not enough on a platform where most viewers never open the description.
What we expect
- A genuine segment, not a three-second insert. If it does not warrant thirty seconds, it is not the right collaboration.
- A link to the product page in the description, marked as a gifted or paid placement.
- A pinned comment with the same disclosure, because that is where the conversation happens.
What to avoid
- Burn-time or scent-throw claims stated as measurements unless you took them from our product page.
- Comparison content against a named competitor. We do not want our name in that video.
Format — Horizontal for long form, 9:16 for Shorts. A Short cut from a long-form segment counts as one deliverable, not two.
Disclosure
Use the paid-partnership label on the Pin and include #ad in the description. Pinterest surfaces content for years, so an undisclosed Pin is a problem that does not age out.
What we expect
- Pins that link to the product or collection page, not to your own index.
- A description written for search rather than for a feed — someone finds this in eighteen months.
- Vertical, styled imagery. Pinterest is the one platform where a still beats a video for us.
What to avoid
- Pinning our imagery to a board with no credit and no link. It travels further than any other platform and comes back unattributed.
- Prices in the Pin text. They will be wrong before the Pin stops being served.
Format — 2:3 vertical, 1000x1500 or larger. Text overlay is welcome if it is legible at thumbnail size.
Disclosure
Use the Branded Content tool and tag us as the business partner, plus #ad in the opening line.
What we expect
- A post to a page or a public profile. We cannot see, credit or reshare a friends-only post.
- The product page linked directly.
What to avoid
- Cross-posting an Instagram Reel with the Instagram watermark. Facebook down-ranks it and it looks recycled.
- Group posts framed as a personal recommendation without the disclosure. That is the exact scenario the ARB Code is written about.
Format — Square or 4:5. Facebook crops harder than Instagram on the same image.
Blog or website
Disclosure
A plain statement above the fold, before the reader gets to the review, saying the product was gifted or the placement paid. Add rel="sponsored" to any link back to us — Google asks for it, and a missing attribute can cost you.
What we expect
- A real piece of writing. A paragraph inside a round-up is fine if the round-up is honest.
- A link to the product page with the sponsored attribute set.
- Images credited to you, or ours credited to us.
What to avoid
- A disclosure in the footer or on a separate policy page. It has to be where the reader is.
- Republishing our product description as body copy. It is written for our page and it will compete with it in search.
Format — Whatever your site is built for. If you want our photography at print resolution, ask and we will send it.
The authority here is the Advertising Regulatory Board's Code of Advertising Practice and the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, not the American FTC that most creator guidance is written to. Both ask the same thing: that a reader can tell it is advertising without having to look.
Giveaways
The one format where somebody who is neither you nor us picks up an expectation. We are happy to supply and ship a prize; this is how we would like it run.
We supply the prize and we ship it
You never buy the prize and claim it back. We send it directly to the winner, at our cost, anywhere in South Africa. That also means the winner gets it in our packaging, which is half the reason to run one.
You run it, so you are the promoter
You set the mechanic, publish the rules, draw the winner and announce them. We will review the rules before you post if you send them, and we would rather you did.
The rules have to be readable before entering
A link in the caption to a pinned comment, a story highlight or a page on your site is fine. What is not fine is rules that only appear after someone has entered, or rules that exist only in your head.
Entry is free
No purchase, no subscription, no premium-rate anything. Standard data costs are the entrant's own, and that is the only cost there may be.
Keep the records
The entry list, the method of draw and the winner's confirmation. Three years is the benchmark we work to. If we are ever asked about a competition run with our product in it, that record is the answer.
The winner's details reach us only with their consent
We need a name and a delivery address to send a prize and nothing else. Ask them, and tell them it is us sending it. POPIA applies to you here, not to us, and it is the part creators most often miss.
Defaults to start from
- Prize
- One candle from the current range, chosen by you, or a pair if the piece warrants it. Agreed before you post.
- Runs for
- Seven days minimum. Anything shorter reads as urgency for its own sake and most of your audience misses it.
- Who may enter
- South African residents, 18 or over. Stated in the rules.
- The draw
- Random, from valid entries, within three days of closing. Say how you drew it when you announce.
- Announcing
- Publicly, on the same platform, and tag us so we see it. A story that expires is not an announcement.
- If nobody claims
- Thirty days, then redraw. Tell the entrants that up front and it never becomes an argument.
- Disclosure
- The same as any collaboration. A prize supplied by a brand is a commercial relationship, whatever else it is.
What we will not agree to
- Follow-loops, giveaway trains, or any mechanic that requires following a list of accounts. The followers do not stay and the ones who do are not ours.
- Tag-five-friends. One tag is a recommendation; five is a chain letter with our name on it.
- Entry mechanics that require a purchase, a share to a private group, or joining a mailing list without a separate, ticked opt-in.
- Cash instead of the prize, or swapping the prize for something not in the range.
- International shipping. We will send anywhere in South Africa and no further.
- Running the same giveaway across several creators in the same week. It reads as a campaign, not a recommendation.
Copy this into your rules
This competition is run by [your name/handle]. The prize is supplied by Claudi's (claudis.co.za). Open to South African residents aged 18 and over. No purchase necessary. This competition is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with any social media platform. Entrants' details are used only to run this competition and to deliver the prize. Full rules: [link].
Fill in the brackets. It names you as the promoter, names us as the supplier, removes the platform — which every platform requires and almost nobody includes — and tells entrants what happens to their details.
What is on right now
Read live from the shop, so this is current whenever you are reading it. Link to the page rather than quoting a price — both move.
Before you start
Our Creator & Collaboration Terms set out what we send, what we ask, who owns the content, and how either of us can end a collaboration. The short version: you keep your copyright, we may reshare with credit, disclosure is not optional, and there is no exclusivity unless we have agreed it and paid for it.
Tell us about your work
We read every one of these ourselves. If it is a fit we will come back to you within a few days; if it is not, we will say so rather than leave you wondering.