Introducing Control & Chaos!

Portraits by Sarah Ainlise.

From a successful career in beauty spanning four decades to a new chapter for her creativity, Stacia, founder of Control & Chaos, proves that passion never retires. Handcrafted with natural ingredients, a dash of humour, and  East End roots, Control & Chaos captures life’s precious moments through storytelling with natural scents for olfactory evocation. Come and get your all-natural, luxury candles from the Control & Chaos stall at our market starting on 1st November, outside Pellicci Cafe 10 am to 4 pm and every Saturday until Christmas.

“I have been in the beauty business for 38 years — oh my God! My whole career was as a buyer, and I left my last role about four years ago. I had always been responsible for finding beautiful niche brands. I was going to retire and do nothing, and then I just thought — I’ve got one passion project in me.

I had a bit of an issue with candles, because either they were not natural — which to me is a big thing, since using mineral wax isn’t great for the environment — or if they had personality, then all the humour was a bit rude or crass. I just thought, you know, there’s room in the market for a beautiful, natural range that’s safe to use at home, has personality, but doesn’t rely on body parts or swear words!

I was trying to think of a name. Basically, Control & Chaos is my husband and myself — me being the control bit, and him being the chaos bit! We wanted to create fragrances that reflected a chaotic situation and the controlling element. For example, Whine and Grind represents sleepless nights after the birth of a baby and then relying on black coffee to power through the days — that’s why it smells of coffee and baby powder. Each one has a backstory.

Our candles are natural and beautifully fragranced. They all have stories. Tryst and Forgiveness is a rose fragrance. The boxes actually tell the story. I’ve been in beauty long enough to have a commercial brain, so I wanted fragrances people relate to — a citrus, a vanilla, a floral. I hope people take from them what we intend — they’re a little quirky, the fragrance mixes are eclectic and sophisticated, but the fact that they’re natural is important.

I also wanted the boxes and jars to be beautiful — a lot of candles are just white boxes with black, white, or clear glass. My business partner is my brother — a brilliant operator — and our cousin is an interior designer with a beautiful aesthetic. He was responsible for the boxes and artwork, and we worked with fashion illustrator Joanna Layla, who does beautiful work for a lot of fashion houses. She did the artwork for our boxes, and we’re very happy with how they turned out.

Both my parents grew up in Stepney. I was born, and my son was born, in the London Hospital in Whitechapel. My father worked in Bethnal Green for many years — Pellicci’s was his lunch place. Our parents took us there when we were young, and my father and I have taken our sons since they were babies. My son now has his own baby — he lives in America, but when they were over in London my granddaughter had her first bacon roll! So yes, we are four generations of Bethnal Greeners.

Like a lot of people, we go to Pellicci’s as many Saturdays or days in the week as we can. I just remember Bethnal Green Road being such a vibrant market — a bit like Roman Road Market — with so much choice and variety and craft people. Now, when you walk along, it’s more or less all the same stuff. So to me, to create something lovely, particularly around Pellicci’s, is so exciting!

This is very joyful for us — it’s a family business. There’s only the three of us doing it. It truly is a passion project. It’s lovely that we’ve had some recognition — we’re in some of the finest retailers around the world. But for us, it’s just important that at a time when a lot of people are thinking of retirement, we decided we’d pull up our sleeves and create something lovely.

When I left my last job, it was incredibly stressful and responsible. I couldn’t ever just do nothing! It’s nice to keep working and share what brings you joy. As a small team, we all get on brilliantly — most of the time we agree on everything. We’re all mid-50s plus. I don’t think there should ever be an age limit on doing anything in life!”