We recently connected with Christle & Allie Aguilera and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christle & Allie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

It was the spring of 2020 Christle had been layed off of her preschool teaching job and Allie had transitioned to online school following the Covid Pandemic.

By April we were bored and made candles one day for something to do. It was suggested to us to sell candles online to family and friends through social media, so thats what we did.

Having the business gave us something to be excited about and look forward to. We launched Aguilera’s Amazing Aromas in May 2020 selling on Facebook and Instagram. We started a website through Shopify right away.

We launched new fragrances monthly (and still do) and by fall our home was overcome by candle making supplies and inventory. We moved into a makers space in a local underground shopping venue called the Market Place Underground right before Christmas 2020 and have been here ever since.

In the beginning we didnt think of this long term. It was helping us to cope and get through being home 24/7.

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?

We have expanded beyond candles and have added soy wax melts, goats milk soaps, foaming hand soaps, body scrubs, scented slimes, shampoo bars, soap scrap bags, turkish cotton bath robes, blankets, and other seasonal items.

We live in an area that has a high population of low income households. We want to provide affordable luxury items for everyone. We try our hardest to keep our price points low.

We are most proud of the returning customers that have found us and love our products. Getting to know them and their excitement about finding us and products they love. It rejuvenates us and helps us to know that we are doing this for a reason.

We give back to our community through various ways, donating to local organizations, being a part of local women in business groups, makers groups, handing out candy at our town’s safe trick or treating event.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The most important thing we’ve done for our business is to get out of our brick and mortar. We participate in local farmers markets, vendor events, bazaars, festivals, and fairs.

We use these events to connect with our customers, getting to know them, getting them to know us and our business. We have information about upcoming events and an email marketing sign up form.

It has taken a couple years of telling people where we are located (a hard to find spot) but we are seeing more people coming to see us from events we were at.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We manufacture all of our products in our rented space. We have a window in our making space where people can walk by and see us making. We already knew how to make candles. When we have launched a new products it involves research through youtube, books, website, and other venues.

We listen to our customers about what products they’re looking for when considering what to bring into our store next. We are currently in the process of releasing a mens beard oil and beard balm that was heavily requested.

We’ve learned we need a lot more space for manufacturing than we do for retail.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aguilerasamazingaromas.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/aguileras_amazing_aromas
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/aguilerasamazingaromas
• Other: tiktok/aguileras_amazing_aromas