Bath & Body Works pulled a 'Snowed In' candle whose snowflake label read as a KKK hood

In October 2024, Bath & Body Works released 'Snowed In', a holiday-scented candle meant to evoke winter, with a label showing a cut-paper snowflake motif. On the paper sleeve, the repeating snowflake pattern — with its pointed tip and cut-out eye-like void — read to many shoppers as a Ku Klux Klan hood.

Photos of the candle spread across X within hours. The resemblance was immediate enough that the retailer pulled the item from sale and removed it from its website, then issued an apology: the company said it was 'committed to listening to our teams and customers and apologize sincerely for this miss', was 'swiftly working to have this item removed and evaluating our process going forward'.

The backlash landed on a brand that had been here before. Two years earlier Bath & Body Works drew criticism for repackaging its Black History Month collection in Kente cloth prints after quietly retiring its previous collection, and was sued over the 'Love and Light' candle that played a Bible verse. The pattern of a holiday product reading as a racial symbol made the miss harder to wave off.

The candle was not recalled so much as removed from sale, and the exact scale of the loss was never disclosed. The saga became a short-lived internet punchline and a case-study reminder that a decorative motif can carry a meaning no member of the packaging team intended.