Bath & Body Works has withdrawn a winter-season candle from sale and issued an apology after customers said the design on its packaging resembled the hoods and robes associated with the Ku Klux Klan. The three-wick product, sold under the name “Snowed In,” appeared briefly online and in stores before being pulled once the complaints surfaced. In a statement, the company said the resemblance was unintended and promised to examine how the design was approved, adding: “We apologize to anyone we’ve offended and are swiftly working to have this item removed and are evaluating our process going forward.”
The controversy centres on the printed motif that circled the jar. The artwork was meant to depict a paper snowflake—an image commonly used in the brand’s holiday line—but the way the shapes were rendered gave some shoppers a starkly different impression. Along the label’s perimeter, a series of white, cone-like points angle inward, and near the centre of each are two small circular cut-outs. Shoppers photographed and filmed the label, then compared it to the pointed white hoods and eye slits synonymous with the Klan. Within hours, images of the candle were circulating across Instagram and X, where users debated whether the design was an obvious error that should have been caught or an example of social media seeing offence where none was intended. Bath & Body Works removed the product listing and told customers it had initiated the pull across channels.
The firm’s statement sought to close down speculation about intent while acknowledging the perception problem. While the label was conceived as a snowflake cut-out, the brand said, the visual outcome missed the mark for some viewers. That gap between artistic intention and public reception—especially when the imagery is adjacent to a hate symbol—triggered a swift corporate response. The company’s commitment to “evaluating our process going forward” indicates the incident will feed into pre-launch checks, including more rigorous review of seasonal artwork and sensitivity vetting for designs that use stylised geometric shapes. The decision to apologise without qualification and to withdraw the product rather than simply edit the listing or change its description underlines how quickly consumer-facing brands are now moving when criticism coalesces online.
The blowback formed in the space where seasonal consumer branding intersects with America’s unresolved history of racist terror. The Klan’s pointed white hood and robe are not merely historical costume; for many Americans they remain an active symbol of intimidation, violence and segregation. When abstractions or decorative motifs echo that silhouette, even inadvertently, the association can overpower any benign intention. That dynamic has forced companies across sectors to conduct stricter pre-release reviews of iconography, logos and patterns, particularly when repeating shapes or negative space can be read in multiple ways. The debate around “Snowed In” followed that template: some social media users insisted the resemblance was obvious, while others said they would never have seen it without prompting and argued it looked like nothing more than a clumsy snowflake. In one exchange cited by news outlets, comments ranged from “This wasn’t an accident” to “It’s just a poorly executed design that shouldn’t have been approved,” highlighting both the suspicion of intent that often attaches to such controversies and the more pragmatic critique of quality control.