Privacy, plainly told

The short version

Only what the kettle needs

• We collect the details needed to pour, pack and post your order, and to reply when you write to us. Nothing more.
• Your basket lives on your device, not on our servers — see below.
• The newsletter is strictly opt-in, one email a month, and every email carries an unsubscribe link.
• We never sell or rent your details, and we don’t run advertising trackers on this site.
• Ask us at any time what we hold about you — it’s yours, and we’ll show you.

Who we are

The studio behind the jar

Ember & Oak is a small-batch candle studio at Studio 6, Wickfield Works, 48 Tallow Lane, Hackney, London E8 2QT. For anything on this page, the people responsible are the same two who pour the candles — reach us at hello@emberandoak.co.uk or on 020 7946 0821.

What we collect

Orders, enquiries and nothing idle

When you order — your name, delivery address, email address, phone number if you give one, and what you bought. We use these to take payment, pour and post your candles, send the dispatch and tracking emails, and keep the records HMRC requires of any business. That’s the lawful basis of a contract, plus our legal obligations.

When you write to us — through the contact form, by email, by phone or on WhatsApp — we keep your name, contact details and the message itself for as long as it takes to help you properly, and a little while after in case the conversation rekindles.

When you join the newsletter — your email address, held only with your consent, used only for the one email a month we promise, and deleted when you unsubscribe.

We don’t buy lists, scrape profiles, or collect anything about you from anyone else.

The basket

Your basket stays on your device

The basket on this site is kept in your browser’s local storage — a small note saved on your own device, never sent to us. It’s simply how the site remembers your jars as you move between pages, and it means we can’t see what’s in your basket and don’t want to.

It stays until you clear your browser’s stored data, and clearing it does nothing worse than empty the basket. No account is created, no tracking pixel watches it, and nothing about it leaves your machine.

Consent

The newsletter asks first

You only hear from us if you’ve asked to. Signing up is a clear, separate choice — never a pre-ticked box, never bundled into checkout — and consent can be withdrawn as easily as it was given: every email ends with an unsubscribe link that works first time. Leave, and your address is removed from the list rather than parked somewhere “just in case”.

Retention

How long things stay on the shelf

• Order records — six years, because UK tax law asks it of every business.
• Enquiries and messages — up to twelve months after our last reply, then deleted.
• Newsletter addresses — for as long as you stay subscribed, and no longer.

When a record’s time is up, it goes — we don’t keep data burning past its last centimetre.

Sharing

Who else touches your details

Only the few hands a parcel needs: Royal Mail receives your name and address to deliver your box, our payment provider processes your card when you pay (we never see or store card numbers ourselves), and the service that sends our newsletter holds subscriber addresses on our instructions. Each acts under contract, for that purpose alone.

We never sell, rent or swap your details, and no advertising network learns what you burn.

Your rights

It’s your data — ask us anything

Under UK GDPR you can ask us, at any time, to:

• show you everything we hold about you (a subject access request);
• correct anything that’s wrong or out of date;
• delete what we hold, where the law lets us;
• hand over your data in a portable format, or restrict or object to how it’s used.

Email hello@emberandoak.co.uk with “Data request” in the subject line and we’ll reply within one month, without charge and without fuss.

Not satisfied? You can complain to the UK’s regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We’d rather you told us first so we can put it right — but the right is yours either way.

Changes

If this page changes

If we ever change how we handle your data — a new courier, a checkout, a different newsletter service — this page will say so before the change takes effect, in the same plain English.