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

Tiara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

Gladly. Hey Hey! Well my name is Tiara Griffin and first, I’m so happy to be granted this opportunity. Objectively speaking, I got into the candle making business simply from the desire to provide all-natural, high end products for people like me. However, I already knew that helping myself could also be used to help so many others. From a young age, I knew that my way of processing emotions and experiences were different than my peers. It wasn’t until my college years that I was able to identify this experience as anxiety. While all anxiety is different, I noticed that working with my hands became comforting. I also knew that there were rituals that brought myself and others peace, but didn’t fit the exact mold that I love. LUXURY. Luxury living and everything that it entails. And for me, you can’t create luxury without the first ingredient. A magnificent fragrance! This led me to create the business you all see today…E V LUX Candle Company. This company allows me a safe space to create. It allows me to add a luxurious touch, but most importantly it allows me to help and heal others, like myself, with mental and emotional challenges.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I have heard this quote my entire life, but it hadn’t quite sunk in until earlier this year: “Comparison is the thief of all joy”. This was the first lesson I had to learn when stepping into the marketing aspect of E V LUX Candle Co. (Specifically, social media marketing.) When it comes to our modern world digital marketing, it’s very easy to find yourself comparing all things large and small. Anything from the look of your product, to the look of YOU holding YOUR OWN product. Especially for me. True to form, I arrived fashionably late to the social media world. I created my very first Instagram account just this past November of 2021, and I was TERRIFIED, to say the least. My first few months of posting were awful and mostly out of fear; and the stress of trying to mimic a trend, just didn’t feel genuine to me. So I took a week off to meditate and reset. During that week I realized some key things..

It is imperative to constantly remind myself that:

1. Social media posts are just “Highlight tapes”. Very rarely do we see the real life behind the apps we use. We only see the highest moments. Along with maybe one picture/video out of millions.

2. It is 1000% IMPOSSIBLE to compete with a computer in the self comparison game. ( Ex: Facetune, Faceshot, Photoshop) You will lose each and every time. So save yourself the negative self talk.

3. If I mimic what I see..I’m blending in with society and watering down the value of who I really am. I want you all to experience me and my vision through business, authentically.
I’ve learned to be authentically me and genuinely grateful for who I am and where I am. To appreciate my business at every level. I believe that can only lead to my product being noted as superior, among existing brands.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I am going to be honest and say that when E V LUX Candle Co was put on my heart, I had no idea where to start. To that point, I had only experienced candles, but had never heard of someone actually designing them from almost nothing. So I did the one thing which only an esteemed woman, such as myself would do; I googled it. Then I searched on Youtube. Yes, Youtube. I YouTubed video after video, for hours and those hours turned into days. After a few weeks, with $50 dollars in my bank account and a candle making kit in my amazing shopping cart, I had finally worked up the courage to tap, “Proceed to Checkout”. That transaction began my candle making journey. You can purchase the kit, no problem. What they don’t tell you is about all the time and sacrifice it takes to create the perfect recipe. One that seamlessly blends the most lavish fragrances, with only the purest of burns. Candle making is not for the faint of heart, but I was determined to get it. I knew that it would pay off and I could intensely visualize E V LUX Candle Company in its prime. Suffice to say, I was determined to create this business. After months and countless hours of research and testing, my candle recipe was ready for your space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.myevluxcandleco.com
• Instagram: @MyEVLUX_CandleCo Link: https://www.instagram.com/myevlux_candleco/
• Facebook: Name: E V LUX Link: https://www.facebook.com/E-V-LUX-109422114792756https://

Image Credits
Timothy Jackson Jr. Shannon Howard