Brooklyn Candle Studio
Tamara Mayne, Owner and Creative Director
Headquarters: Brooklyn, NY
Founded: 2013

Tell us about your expansion into the bath sector.
A few years ago, we started dreaming up ways we could take our brand ethos, vision and beloved scents beyond solely candles. Candles is a very seasonal business, so the warmer months have always been more challenging for us, and we wanted to create something that would be relevant year-round. While we are in the midst of working on some other home fragrance products, we also wanted to create something for the body. Rather than go into perfumes which is what a few of our competitors have done, we chose to venture into the world of all-natural soaps. We wanted to create beautiful bars that are versatile and all-natural without harsh chemicals or toxic ingredients that smell alluring and botanical, like our beloved candle scents. Sometimes all-natural soaps scented with just essential oils can smell a bit too medicinal, bitter or acidic; we chose to create all-natural bars that smell balanced and beautiful. We partnered with a Vermont-based manufacturer that prides itself on sustainable sourcing and has a vast knowledge of skin superfoods to help us execute our vision.

As a female- and Asian/POC-owned business, do you face added obstacles in running your business?
I honestly feel like, because I have never sought out investors and have bootstrapped the business from the beginning, that I don’t face as many obstacles as other female entrepreneurs that deal with the male-dominated venture capitalism industry. I don’t remember an instance where I experienced overt racism or sexism as an entrepreneur, but there certainly were micro-aggressions. I work mostly behind the scenes now, coding and designing our website, designing sets and doing photography, product development and package design, that I don’t feel like my race and/or sex hinder me at all. However, if I had to work directly with people other than my management team on a daily basis, I think it’d be a different story. I think part of the reason why I gravitated toward such a behind-the-scenes role in the company was to avoid the micro-aggressions I’d experienced in client-facing jobs in my 20s, especially when I worked with mostly men when I worked in the fields of finance and technology. And that’s sad. A lot of change needs to happen.

Do you feel that you have a greater role in the marketplace and the community at large?
I do feel like as a WOC leader and business owner, that I am in a unique position to step up and lead by example. It will take millions of voices before women and people of color achieve the equity we deserve. Because I always liked being behind-the-scenes, it feels a bit uncomfortable for me to create these posts and emails about being a proud WOC entrepreneur. But it’s not about just me anymore. We have just emerged from four years of rampant xenophobia, so we have a lot of work to do. We need to show that we are job creators, economic contributors, and vital and worthy members of society. I feel a responsibility to lift up marginalized voices, to enact policies internally that combat discrimination and unconscious bias, to openly donate to causes and organizations that support racial and gender equity. And we do.