The Quality Makers: Kristen Pumphrey of P.F. Candle Co.
Founder Kristen Pumphrey of P.F. Candle Co.
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Welcome to The Quality Makers, an interview series highlighting pioneers in the direct-to-consumer space. Join us as we get an inside look at the world of digital shopping through the eyes of the individuals shaping it…
P.F. Candle Co. is a Los Angeles-based home fragrance company owned and operated by Kristen Pumphrey and her life and business partner, Thomas Neuberger. The brand makes high quality fragrance for your atmosphere— independently owned and operated since 2008. This interview features Pumphrey, the founder, creative director and co-owner of P.F. Candle Co., who believes that fragrance is an extension of your home design. She creates high quality products that are vegan, cruelty-free, and phthalate-free, always – with accessible price points in mind.
All their lovely products are developed, produced, tested, and packed by their team out of a warehouse in Los Angeles. Deeply dedicated to design, DIY, their community & the environment, P.F. Candle Co. donates a portion of their total net profits to local and national charities. Believe me when I say, their devotion is clear in everything they do and produce. Enjoy reading more about Kristen’s journey below.
Credit: P.F. Candle Co.
Please introduce P.F. Candle Co.
I started the business in 2008 while I was working in publishing. I was writing about people who were making a living selling handmade goods. I ended up losing my job in the recession and started my own handmade business. I left New York, moved to Texas and was selling mainly at markets and craft fairs, and when we relocated to California, we started getting picked up by small boutiques. We built the business by doing these direct-to-consumer shows and building relationships with the people there, and now we have two stores in addition to the retailers that we're in, one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco. The stores really feel like an extension of those craft fair days – I love playing undercover boss, talking to people about everything fragrance.
The P.F. stands for ‘pommes frites,’ which is very similar to my last name Pumphrey. I first started the business as a blog, then it was an Etsy shop, and my MySpace name at the time was Kristen Pommes Frites, so I just named it that not really thinking it would go anywhere. We were later selling to higher end retailers like West Elm, and I couldn’t sell to them with a straight face. So Tom suggested I abbreviate the name and just call it P.F.
What led you to fragrance? I'd love to hear more about ‘fragrance as an extension of home design’.
Fragrance feels like an interior design element that really speaks to the way the space feels. It's one of those non-visual cues that has such an impact on your home design. I started making candles when I was 11, so when I was starting my handmade business, I returned to the products I knew I could make and make well. Candles were the thing that stuck because we were able to make 8 or 16 candles at a time. Fragrance came secondary to me because I was always about the craft. Personal fragrance used to be about having your own signature scent, and now you're using it to express your mood or as a form of self identification. It almost feels like an accessory, and because we work in home, it feels like your home's accessory.
Credit: P.F. Candle Co.
Tell me about the products you offer. I saw you have a Classic Line and an Alchemy Line.
The Classic Line is what we're known for. We introduced that line in 2012; it's got the craft, the packaging and the amber jar so it's very apothecary inspired. That line has a lot of varied scents that are inspired by mood, memory and travel. What really ties it together is this feeling of nostalgia. I'm a huge fan of vintage, whether it's clothing or furniture, so I always try to incorporate that when we're styling. Within the line, we have diffusers and candles in three sizes. We just came out with our large concentrated candle which is basically every single scent on steroids, it's super strong. The incense is one of my personal favorites, I’m burning incense all day long - I even use it as a timekeeper. It's essentially a bookend for me, whereas candles are all about the ambiance, and lastly we also do room & linen sprays.
The Alchemy Line we released last year and it’s really inspired by nature and its healing properties. Nature is my personal happy place, so everything just smells super true to life. That's really our signature thing: everything is made for people with fragrance sensitivities. Tom, my partner, actually has major fragrance sensitivities, so if he can burn it, we know that it's good for most if not everyone. We also released a book in 2021, which focuses on our approach to using fragrance in your home. It includes explanations of fragrance families, fragrance tenacity and there's also a really great DIY section.
Credit: P.F. Candle Co.
How do sustainability and affordability play a role in your brand development?
We're one of the only Climate Neutral certified home fragrance brands. It’s essentially a way that we can measure and offset our carbon footprint, and we're also accountable to somebody else in order to submit a plan that says how we're going to reduce our carbon footprint. From the very beginning, our use of soy wax, which is an alternative to petroleum-based paraffin, informed our eco-conscious mindset. We do composting in all of our locations and we run on green energy.
I personally ride a bike to work every day rather than using a car to commute, and that's like a 16 mile round trip, so this is something that naturally became a part of our DNA. We focus on creating products that are useful and purposeful. With candles, you're gonna have a little bit of waste with that jar, so we teach people how to reuse the jar, how to recycle it, and just think very consciously about the products that you're bringing into your life. In terms of affordability, if you have an $80 candle, you're not going to be burning it every day and you're not going to get that enjoyment. Since we make all of our products ourselves, we can really control the price. We can take what should be sold as a $60 candle and sell it for $24. I want people to be able to feel like they can use that product every day and not just save it for a rainy day.
Tell me about your creation process.
We're about 50/50 now with our wholesale partners and our direct-to-consumer sales. A large portion of how we sell is digital, so you have to use visuals to convey how the scent smells. For me, a scent starts with a seed – let’s take lemon verbena or bergamot as an example. We then immediately go to creating a Pinterest mood board and pulling images that talk about how the fragrance is going to make you feel and what it's going to look like visually. My development manager creates some of the best Pinterest mood boards I've ever seen. It just completely takes you into the world of the scent. We're then going to pitch the scents to the fragrance partners that we work with at different perfumery houses. They have access to every single molecule under the sun and can really pinpoint what we want it to smell like. Sometimes we will blend something in house if we have a really specific idea and then we'll send it to them to duplicate. But generally we go through many rounds of revisions until we reach the perfect scent.
Credit: P.F. Candle Co.
Where does your inspiration come from in terms of the scents themselves?
This past year, we started doing a little bit of trend following in terms of studying where the perfumery and fragrance market is at. Right now, vanilla is having a moment. Due to its popularity, we re-released our Vanilla and Ghost Pepper scent for the holidays. But when we're creating something that's going to be a permanent inclusion on the line, we try to create scents that feel not as trend based because we want it to have longevity. A lot of my inspiration comes from nature. I love to garden, I love to hike, and I just really want to create scents that feel true to life.
I really love the transparency aspect that you have in terms of sharing your whole team on your website. It’s wonderful to see the people behind the products. That's a great point of differentiation.
We just started this thing called Warehouse Wednesdays, where I go around the warehouse and feature different people from our team. When I started this business, I was working by myself for years before Tom joined me. I was so lonely all the time, so I really love having a team. There's been a big movement of founder centric businesses in the past decade and while I definitely speak for the business and love talking about it, I also want to make sure that my team is featured because they're making it all happen. It's not just a single entity. We make everything ourselves and this business literally started on my kitchen stove top and now we have our own stores. I try to be as transparent as possible in terms of our growth because I’m also really proud of how far we’ve come.
What do you hope people will take away from your brand when engaging with it?
I believe that fragrance products provide a way to be more mindful in your everyday life. I find this especially with my incense use. Life is super hectic and increasingly digital, but fragrance, candles and incense are not. Lighting my incense has become my touch grass moment of the day. I hope our products can bring you that moment of pause and reflection, that connection to your space, because that's becoming more important.
My main focus is that I want our growth to be sustainable. I want to be able to provide opportunities for the people on our team. I want to grow consciously, in the sense that we’re thoughtful about when and how we're releasing new products, and thinking about the impact that they're going to have on the environment and on our customers. I really hope our community catches onto that.