We recently connected with Tiffany Rose and have shared our conversation below.

Tiffany, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Coming up with the idea…… it was out of a need to find more to do with my children while we were all suffering through the COVID 19 pandemic. My family had moved to a new city and everything was shut down. As parents, we were running out of things to do to occupy our children. One day I asked my tweens if they could have a business at their current age (10 & 11), what would it be? My son Miles said anything that could make money with gaming and my daughter wanted to have a fashion company. Well I couldn’t do either, so I mentioned learning how to make candles. My son said, “NO”…my daughter said we could try it. AND WE DID. We had so much fun with the first kit we order that I found us. both wanting to experiment more. From blending scents, to different vessels, every week I was ordering more and more wax and other materials so we could make and test. After several months we decided we could possibly make this work. My husband came up with the name School Scents. I actually was not feeling it. It didn’t ring for me at first but we needed something that would resonate with our potential customer base. School Scents is all about the nostalgic names of our scents that resonate with our customers.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

School Scents Candles was established in 2021 as a mother/teen home luxury fragrance company. Our gold standard product line includes soy wax candles and all-natural room sprays. Our hand poured candles and signature home scents are carefully crafted using the highest quality ingredients that are free from toxins and curated in small batches. Our delightful fragrances are guaranteed to provide beautiful ambient scents that are not only aromatic, but also safe for your family, pets, and the environment.
School Scents’ names were created to spark nostalgia and are centered around fond memories of positive school experiences from elementary through college years. Scents like snooze button, prom queen, study hall, power to the paper and many others to evoke familiar childhood and young adult memories. Our goal is to rejuvenate your senses and allow you to embrace your joyful youth experiences. Although part of our company is run by teens, nothing is juvenile about our scents. When you think of School Scents, think of sophisticated, long-lasting scents, created to refresh your palate, and invigorate your senses.

We are most proud of how we get to educate our customers on the different wax types and how the waxes we use are non toxic, paraben free and burn clean. Our candle scent profiles keeps our customers ordering multiple candles at a time and they continue to come back for more.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

Last year (2022) I decided to exhibit our products at a trade show. I signed up to do a smaller one in Philadelphia but after talking to the rep she convinced me to show my line at NY NOW Gift Show. It is one of the largest gifting shows on the East Coast with roughly 800-1000 exhibitors twice a year. When it comes to my business I can be on the more reserved end especially in large crowds. I was very apprehensive. Leading up to this show I wanted to quit several times. I lost a great deal of sleep worrying about how would my products show against other brands, what if I do this and no one writes an order with us, the list went on and on. This was an act of faith and true confidence in our brand. I had to get my game plan together and simply relax. The goal was to put together a beautiful booth and let the product speak for itself, and it did! We wrote several orders but two of the ones that stand out the most is our order with Hudson News for two major airports and being selecting to pop up for Museum Store Sundays with The Barnes Foundation which celebrated their 100th anniversary. Not only were we selected to pop up, we hosted three candle making classes and created an “art inspired” trio of candles for their gift shop and have been invited back this year. When thinking about marketing it will all be a risk. You will win some and you will lose some but in the end you want to make an impact for your business. Every tool will not pay off in the beginning but make sure people remember your product.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

The best source for new clients has been visibility. Making sure we align with spaces that will give us greater exposure. West Elm and Madewell have been great pop up partners for our growing business. It has given greater visibility and bought about an existing client base that follow us to each location when we pop up. This year we plan to continue popping up with the two companies. We plan on adding more stores to gain the attention of buyers, in hopes they will write an order to carry us in their store.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.schoolscents.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/school.scents/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/School-Scents-103264785062738
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmFgVPM1MfILLJE15cDKFgQ

Image Credits
@jahvanwhite