We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tiana Pistillo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tiana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Being a candle maker was never in the plan. I had been working in clinical research until I was laid off during Covid. During this time I also lost my older sister, began graduate school, and became a single mom. My stress was through the roof and was looking for a distraction from how I was feeling. I came across a video about candle making by complete chance. My immediate thought was I could do this! And so I made my first candle…..and it was awful! Wrong wax, wick, oil, and jar! But I was so proud of my little kitchen candle and I enjoyed the distraction. I would go on to spend seven months testing and creating candles. As I learned more about candle making I became wildly disheartened to learn about the additives major candle companies were adding to their blends to increase shelf life and strengthen fragrance, These additives are carcinogenic and dangerous. I decided at this point that my goal would be to make cleaner candles. This included looking for cleaner oils, avoiding petroleum-based wax, and choosing a more sustainable wax. I also don’t add any additional additives. I finally decided I wanted to participate in a Valentine’s Day popup. My mother use to do craft fairs and I felt inspired by her to at least try. I remember being so nervous but I went through with it. That was the exact day my hobby became a business and it’s been an amazing experience.

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?

Time To Be. Candle Company is a woman-owned and run business. We hand-pour small batches, of eco-friendly, sustainable, cleaner specialty candles, traditional candles, dough bowls, and seasonal gift boxes. We pride ourselves in bringing quality candles to the Hudson Valley.

We also believe in supporting local businesses and vendors. We co-own an event company: The Hudson Valley Markets, with Emely Diaz who owns Elysian Jewels NYC. We curate markets here in the Hudson Valley through the lens of vendors while prioritizing quality to ensure happy customers.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The thing I needed to unlearn was that not everything will work out as I plan, but I need to be able to readjust my sails and keep moving forward. This lesson became apparent after several events where things went wrong…forgetting inventory, table cloths, displays and other silly errors. Now I go into my events knowing that something will most likely go wrong but instead of internalizing it, I accept it and make needed adjustments.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

Outside of my candle company I also co-own The Hudson Valley Markets. My partner and friend, Emely Diaz who also owns Elysian Jewels NYC, and I met in the Spring of 2022. We immediately connected over our entrepreneurial spirit and our deep desire to build our respective empires. We would go on to do many events together. What inspired us to begin hosting events was that we saw a need. We as vendors ourselves, were tired of paying fees for events that were under-advertised, over-saturated, and lacked accessibility to everyone. We believe by prioritizing our vendors that our shoppers will have better shopping experiences. This has proven to be true and Emely and I are looking for our next event, The Hudson Valley Holiday Market December 9th at the Patterson Recreation Center in Patterson NY.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: TimeToBeCandleCompany
• Other: Instagram : thehudsonvalleymarkets

Image Credits
Message in a candle : Marlabeth Designs Tree, flower, lavender, and gift box were taken by the.dailylifeof.Elle