Maison Blanche was founded by girl-boss Kristy Payne where she started her humble journey in 2013 in her very own apartment. Today we chat with Kristy - everything from bacon-beer candles and how her cat Mr. President inspired the name behind the business.
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Anything and Everything. I started this collection with a classic soft, sweet and smooth Vanilla Bean. It was the reason I started creating candles. I wanted the prefect vanilla to burn in my room at night. From there I explored what it was that people thought made a good candle scent; a smell that relaxes them, a smell good enough to eat, a smell to create atmosphere or a smell that reminds them of their childhood. I started to fill in those needs in my collection, hopefully creating something for everyone.
The craziest (worst) was a bacon-beer candle. I told someone in a passing comment I could make a bacon scented candle and it just went from there. The beer was surprisingly fresh, but the bacon was just awful. It smelt like the old dried bacon bits at the bottom of a pre-packaged ceaser salad. I refused to mix them together, so I made 2 separate candles that he could burn at the same time. He loved it….
Here at Maison Blanche, we are very proud to be a handmade business, and we think our customers are proud to buy handmade. We think that when you buy handmade products, you’re not only getting a beautiful and meticulously made product, but you’re buying a story. Someone has imagined, sourced and created your purchase out of nothing. It is a reflection of who they are, and you get to take a piece of them home. It is also very important to me that something I’m putting into the world, isn’t in turn damaging it, so with that in mind, I picked recyclable labels and high quality glassware with it’s reuse just as important as it’s aesthetics. We encourage our customer’s reuse the jars and lids around their homes to cut down on waste.
I was having tea with my best friend and my mum and we were brainstorming ideas for a business name. We were just yelling out things to do with candles and random words. I said that I thought ‘all the good names are taken in English’, so out came Google translator and we started typing in things. I settled on a perfectly good name, but said, ‘I like it a lot, but it doesn’t really feel like me…’, to which my mum explained, ‘nothing is going to feel like you unless its about cats or politics!’ Anyone that has ever come in contact with me knows that these 2 topics rule my life. I have been obsessed with US politics since I was in high school, I even tried to host an election party in 2008 and 2012 but no one wanted to come. And well, cats. Cats are just the best. I have one cat fittingly called, Mr. President. And that was how the name Maison Blanche was born. Mr. President is a white cat. The real President lives in the White House. White House in French is Maison Blanche. Cats and Politics.
Kristy and her fur children
My cat, he screams for food every morning at exactly 5.43am. I love him dearly, but I have strong thoughts about smothering him too.
Head here for Part 2 to find out Kristy's take on what bespoke fragrance she would make for the President of the United States and what her dream project would be!
I Love This!
By: Catrina on 30 October 2018So funny! I love the description of how you came up with your business name and how no one came to your parties! Whoop.
The Politics of Candles
By: Jeffrey on 19 February 2018I would have come to your Political party! Do you have a Trump Candle. The scent is often mistaken for bacon, but has notes of Rose, Clementine and a dash of Black Pepper, Sadly half the buyers would tell you it smells like Rubbish! Needs to be tax free. Don't go the Bernie Candle, you'll have to give it away. And the Hillary? Easy, Bitter Melon, Bitter Orange, Forget-me-not and Poison Ivy....
