I was so happy to receive these cute Candela Tooli lights to review and keep from OXO. I just think they look so adorable! They are cool to the touch night lights that can be recharged on the charging base. As they don’t get hot they are safe for little ones to handle and if they want to cuddle them at night for reassurance in the dark there is not a problem.   My daughter absolutely loves these Tooli! She is forever removing them from their charging base and walking round with them, one in each hand. Their place in my home is on the bedside unit. There they sit happily on their charging base waiting for when we need to use them.  I haven’t yet used them as a night light as I already have a lamp in the room which gives out more light than these. That doesn’t mean that I don’t need these though. The reason I NEED these is for . . .  power cuts! I am so happy with the knowledge that in a power cut these will automatically turn on (only if on the charging base at the time though).  

Before I was sent the Tooli I had never really thought about what I would do when there was a power cut and my sleeping daughter finds herself in the room in the dark. I suppose I would have had to find a candle or torch , stumble my way to her room in the dark and then worry endlessly about whether or not I should run the risk of putting a candle in her room or whether I should leave a torch on in the room.  The problem with candles is that they are not really safe to be used around young children and they shouldn’t be left unattended and the problem with torches is that they only send out a beam of light which doesn’t really help light up a room….plus the batteries would quickly die if left on too long.  This is where Tooli solves the problem! They are cool to touch which means they are safe to be left unattended in your child’s room, they can be left in the room on the charging base and then you have the peace of mind knowing that they will automatically turn on in a power cut, they will stay lit for up to 8 hours when they are fully charged and as they are light weight and have no wires your child can pick them up and use them to help guide them through the dark house, to come and find you or to go to the toilet, etc.

 The Tooli are not cheap at around £50 for the two lights plus charging base but they are worth the money for the fact that they can help you in an unnerving situation like a power cut. They are ergonomically shaped so perfect for little hands and the bright, vibrant Tooli lights look adorable in a child’s room.  The lights are really easy to switch on. All you have to do is press the little button on the bottom of the Tooli.

They kind of remind me of slugs! Now I don’t like slugs or any kind of creepy crawlies but I do like these ones! I think the idea of the peculiar shaped Tooli is so that your child can use their imagination to decide what the Tooli looks like. As my daughter is too little to be able to tell me I can’t enlighten you with her opinion of what she thinks about them. Judging by how she plays with them though, I would say she thinks they look like a lot of fun! She seems to love just switching them on and off and wandering round the house putting them down somewhere and then going back to pick them up 5 minutes later.  This is what I want though.  I want her to be comfortable using the lights so that when she is big enough to get out of bed and go to the toilet, etc she can take the Toolis with her and not be bothered in the slightest about the darkness.

When I first received these back in mid January I got the opportunity to test them out in a power cut. I had been round my Mum’s house and while I was there the electric went off. Luckily I had one of the Tooli in my changing bag so I put it on the kitchen table to provide a bit of light. (I’ll tell you in a moment why I was carrying it around in my bag.)  The Tooli do not provide an awful lot of light, more a glow , but it is enough to take away the complete darkness. As their main purpose is as a child’s night light they only really need to give out a glow so that they are soothing and reassuring to the child trying to get off to sleep. 

You get enough light from them to read books under the duvet, so they are great for little book worms who don’t like to stop reading at bedtime. They would also make good night lights for little adventures who are camping out in a tent in the garden for the night.  The reason I had the Tooli in my bag that day was because I think they are good to take in the car when travelling with kids at night. I like the dim glow they emit as it is not as distracting as the main interior car light but it provides enough of a glow that the child doesn’t feel they are in the pitch black. My daughter cuddled it like a teddy bear,whilst sitting in her car seat.

Photo showing the power button on the OXO Candela Tooli.

The Tooli are available in two different colourways. I was sent the beautiful Orange / Fuchsia set but you can also buy a Blue / Green set. The colours are really vibrant and the Tooli just look like really contemporary pieces of art when lit up in the room.

The Safe-Charge® system means that the charging base has no exposed electrical components which is a  great selling point as parents always worry about the safety of electrical products, etc. The box states that the Tooli are not Toys and they are not recommended for children under the age of 6 years.   Although personally I feel they are safe enough to let my 20 month old daughter use them.  The Tooli are LED lights and because of the LED technology it says that you shouldn’t need to change the bulbs for the life of the product. Plus as they are rechargeable you will not need to keep buying costly batteries. Yay!

The Tooli lights can be bought from lots of different online retailers. Here are just some of the stockists I have found:- http://www.amazon.co.uk/ , http://www.love-eco.co.uk/, http://www.thatcuteage.com/, http://www.gro-store.co.uk/, http://www.lullabys.co.uk/, http://www.funkymoose.co.uk/ and http://www.ecoutlet.co.uk/

Photo showing the charging base for  the OXO Candela Tooli.

I would highly recommend these OXO Candela Tooli to you. They are an expensive item but I feel that they are good quality items that should last you for years due to them having LED lights and being rechargeable. They would make a fantastic birthday or christmas gift for a child as they come nicely packaged in a colourful box. I look forward to my daughter using them as night lights in her room when she is a bit older.



Photo showing the packaging of the OXO Candela Tooli.



The company who makes the Candela Tooli is called OXO. But it is not the same company as the OXO who make stock cubes! Just in case you were wondering. Admit it. You were! 🙂

OXO was founded by a man called Sam Farber in 1990 and he called the company OXO as he liked the fact that it didn’t matter which way you read the name, horizontally, vertically, upside-down..It always read ‘OXO’. The company started off with a collection of 15 kitchen tools designed with the purpose of making life easier and now in 2011 they have over 850 products that cover most areas of the home.

Sam founded the company on the philosophy of Universal Design.  This means that he wanted to design products that are usable by as many people as possible. OXO employees are reminded daily about how important it is to design products that can be comfortably used by all sorts of people. But you’ll never guess how they are reminded.. . . . .

Photo courtesy of OXO.com

….By looking at their collection of lost gloves!! On the OXO site it says that all OXO employees collect lost gloves from around New York and the world and then display them permanently in the OXO office to remind them of how important it is to make products that will comfortable fit all hands -large, small, female, male, young , old and in between. I think that is a lovely idea. I wonder how many gloves are in their collection?

Photo courtesy of OXO.com