Ben LoBue

Ben LoBue is the founder of Sero Candles, a Tacoma, WA brand built around a problem the category mostly ignores: the container. Most premium candle jars are borosilicate glass, which standard curbside recycling rejects, so the vessel outlasts the product and ends up in landfill. Sero's answer is a 100% recyclable aluminum insert that sits in a reusable beech wood holder. You swap the insert when the wax runs out and recycle the old one with your cans. Two years of materials and design work went into it. Ben and co-founder Abby LoBue ran their own scent testing with dipsticks and spreadsheets before commissioning custom fragrances with a fragrance house, and built custom tooling to weld the aluminum wick clips because no off-the-shelf option matched what the design needed. He can speak...