six months, eight scents: how the blissli core collection came to life
in march 2025, i sat down with a notebook, a collection of fragrance samples and absolutely no idea what i was doing.
six months later, i had a core collection of eight scents, a website and a very strong opinion about wax temperatures.
here's what actually happened in between.
where it started
the beginning of blissli wasn't a eureka moment. it was more of a slow accumulation of irritation.
i kept buying candles that were either beautiful but boring (a lot of muted linens and fig) or interesting but full of things i didn't want in my house (paraffin wax, phthalate-heavy fragrance oils, the kind of ingredients you'd have to google). i wanted something that was genuinely clean and genuinely interesting. with some personality. at a price that didn't require advance planning.
that combination didn't really exist. so i decided to make it.
the fragrance testing phase
i started with about forty fragrance oils. i made test candles, burned them, noted what they did in different rooms at different times of day, made more test candles. i went through a lot of soy wax.
some scents that seemed obvious didn't work. some that i almost dismissed turned out to be the best ones in the range.
fresh sheets nearly didn't make it. it seemed too safe: white florals, clean, minimal. but every time i burned it, the same thing happened: my shoulders dropped. it does something to a room that's hard to articulate and very easy to feel. it stayed.
nordic forest came from the opposite direction. i'd been avoiding anything that smelled like a christmas market because i didn't want the collection to be seasonal. but the pine and clove combination with raspberry underneath was genuinely unexpected. it smelled bold and a bit defiant. it didn't fit any obvious occasion. that was exactly why it earned its place.
the rule i eventually worked out
every scent that made the final collection had to pass a version of the same test: does this make the person who smells it feel something specific?
not just "nice." something specific. the warm comfort of sweet treat. the clean relief of fresh sheets. the escapism of tropical calm. the grounded warmth of cosy glow.
a candle that just smells pleasant isn't interesting enough. if i couldn't articulate what it does to your mood within one sentence, it didn't get in.
the non-scent decisions
while i was working out the range, i was also making every other decision that goes into a candle brand simultaneously.
the jar size. the wick type. the wax blend. the labels, the packaging, the website, the photography, the company name. a lot of evenings and weekends spent on things that had nothing to do with making candles, but everything to do with building a brand.
doing it all yourself is slower than outsourcing it. it's also how you end up with something that actually feels like you.
what eight scents means
eight scents sounds manageable. in practice, it means eight fragrance profiles, eight sets of CLP labels, eight product descriptions, eight sets of photography. it means making sure the range hangs together as a collection: variety without chaos, moods that are distinct and a visual language that's consistent.
the core collection covers: playful and nostalgic (sweet treat), fresh and clean (fresh sheets, uplifting citrus), warm and cosy (cosy glow, soft haze), escapist and summery (tropical calm), bold and earthy (nordic forest), sophisticated and distinctive (luminous veil).
no duplication. every scent fills a gap the others don't.
where we are now
six months from that notebook, blissli launched. gingerbread joined soon after as a seasonal addition, and the spring collection (golden blossom, velvet kiss, calm opulence) arrived later still, taking the full range to twelve scents today.
the core eight haven't changed. a few of them have become things customers come back for again and again, which is the best possible sign that the original instinct was right.
i'm already thinking about what comes next. but i'll save that for another post.
explore the full blissli collection at blissli.co.uk