Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Haley Prochaska. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Haley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

I wanted our brand and business name to really represent our products and what they would mean to our customers. For me, burning candles always created such a peaceful and homey feeling and that’s something I wanted to convey with our name. After playing around with a few different ideas, I landed on ‘harmony’. When your home decor, fragrance, etc. are all in sync and match the mood you’re looking to create it gives off this harmonious vibe and I felt that our products perfectly represented that.

Since we have a wide range of product options aside from candles I wanted that to be apparent in our business name, thus ‘collective’ was added to create ‘Collective Harmony Co’

While we don’t have an extravagant or inspirational story behind our name, I feel that Collective Harmony Co really represents what you’ll find in our products. A collection of goods that create peace and harmony in our home + life.

Haley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My entrepreneurship journey began back when Pinterest was all the rage. I was making coasters with tiles and scrapbook paper to help pay for college expenses. In the fall of 2017, after spending more than enough on candles, I decided to take a whirl at making them myself. I ordered a bag of wax, some fragrance oils, a couple styles of jars and got to work. I remember thinking how hard it seemed to make candles and it felt like a test in science class that I was going to fail. After watching countless videos, reading articles, and searching the FAQ section on the supplier’s website I felt comfortable enough to give it a try. Needless to say that the first batch of candles wasn’t perfect! Almost 7 years later, now candle making is like second nature to me. Years of trial and error and practice has allowed me to perfect my candle making skills.

Flash forward to the spring of 2020 I had been laid off from my corporate job due to the pandemic. I decided to use the unexpected extra time to go all in on my business and see if I could make it a full-time job. I spent much of 2020 testing new products, finding our “voice” and really learning the ins and outs of business ownership. Every new product line that I added to my business was approached in the same way that I initially approached candle making. Lots of research, testing and trial and error. We now offer candles, perfumes, shea butter lotion, room sprays, tinted lip balms, macrame decor and accessories.

In the summer of 2021 I was pregnant with our son, and I had an itch to rebrand Collective Harmony Co (CHC) to ensure our brand, vision, logo, etc. were all in sync. I had been attempting to do this myself using Canva and Pinterest but knew that it was time to hire a professional. From this, the CHC you see today was born. Our slogan of “entice your senses + transform your spaces” really conveys what you can find at CHC. All our products can be enjoyed with one of our five senses, and these can help to transform your spaces. I wanted florals and pastel colors to be a big part of our brand as I feel that our customers can really resonate with this aesthetic. CHC focuses on a lot of feminine products and our products help convey that with the floral arrangements. For seasonal collections I design floral arrangements that convey the vibes of that season. Our fall collection has oranges and tans and yellows, winter has greens and browns and white, and so on. At the end of the day, we want our products to fit into your home decor and seasonal accents too.

My goal for CHC in 2024 is to expand our wholesale clients to bring our products in front of more customers that want to entice their senses + transform their spaces as well. Collective Harmony Co’s goal is to provide fragrances + decor that will help bring together your spaces and create that peaceful and harmonious environment you crave.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

During the pandemic, after being laid off from my corporate job, I was fortunate enough to turn my business into my full-time income. At the time, my husband’s job was able to provide for us while I explored if this was something I could do long term. Thankfully there was a huge support for small business at this time and I was able to create connections with a lot of customers that are still customers today.

After our son was born there was definitely a concern about if I would be able to keep doing this full time. The turning point for me was doing bigger markets in major cities like Chicago and Nashville. Markets have been the bread and butter of growing my business over the last few years. After I did my first big market in Chicago and saw the benefits, I knew this was something I could continue to do.

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

When I first started making candles, I was using a method called the “double boiler” method. I would melt our wax on our stove top by putting a melting pot inside a shallow pot of water. Over the years I have slowly upgraded and now have a 65 lb commercial wax melter that we use to melt all of our soy wax to make candles with! Similarly, when I first started making our perfume and perfume oils, I would use pipettes to transfer the liquid into the containers. Now I have an industrial liquid filling machine. So, to answer your question, my manufacturing process has changed over the years, and I plan on it continually changing as CHC grows and my processes change.

All of my manufacturing processes I have learned over time. I would usually begin with the simplest method to achieve what I need and after repetition and brainstorming upgrade the method. I would do this with either equipment or processes to improve my workflow. Everything has been about trial and error and figuring out what works best for my space and flow. Every maker will have a different machine or tool that they swear by and that’s one of the beautiful things about small businesses – we all have our own way of producing our goods and that’s so special! 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.collectiveharmonyco.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/collectiveharmonyco
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/collectiveharmonyco
• Other: www.pinterest.com/collectiveharmonyco