Whoopi Goldberg Loves Timothy Jay!

We are very proud to add the fabulous Ms Whoopi Goldberg to our fan club. Recently we sent her a Gardenia candle and she loved it so much, she Facebook’d about us! Thank you so much! We think you’re glorious too!

Timothy Jay Candles Private Label… The Ultimate Holiday Gift

Timothy Jay Candles Private Label

The time of year is upon us when we must start to think about what to give for the Holidays. It is increasingly hard to find a gift that stands out from the crowd, reflects your own personal style and makes a lasting impression upon the person who receives it. Thankfully, Timothy Jay Candles has a wonderful solution to this problem that has been popular with leading Hollywood celebrities and stylish brands and companies from all over the world.

Our Private Label service offers you a way to create a custom gift that will delight all recipients and long remind them of your seasonal generosity as it burns through the winter months after the holidays. At Timothy Jay we work with you to create a beautiful box and packaging that reflects your individual brand, style or company logo. Into this we add a handmade Timothy Jay candle with a fragrance of your choice from our Private Label Fragrance Library. We can even customize the candle container and the color of the wax if you want to be very adventurous. We then add a vellum insert to each box with your personal message and finish with a beautiful ribbon. Then the candles are sent to you for you to delight your friends, family and clients with or we can even take care of that part for you, shipping all over the US and the world.

What sets us apart from other Private Label services is that we don’t require a huge order to do this. Our minimum order is low and we pass on wholesale pricing to our Private Label customers ensuring that this imaginative and tasteful gift is also one of the most reasonable ways to take care of your Holiday Gift list. So if you are interested, please give us a call today and we can talk you through the process. Speak to Tim at 323 656 6977…

 

 

 

 

 

Great Article and Interview About Timothy Jay Candles

It is always nice to be mentioned in the media and it’s even nicer when it is in a lovely and informed article by someone who really knows her stuff. We were thrilled therefore with this new piece by Andrea Campbell of the Examiner.com. You can read her excellent article and her great interview with Tim here. Check out her other posts for some really great home and interior ideas…

Fragrance Candles In The Summer…

When summer is in its height and the temperatures and the humidity are up, people tend to forget about fragrance candles. Somehow, we just don’t associate them with the heat, thinking candles are more apt on dark and cold nights.

However, Timothy Jay candles are not designed as a light source, as candles of old were. Fundamentally, they are ways of delivering a beautiful fragrance into the air and creating a lovely atmosphere of your choosing in any room. I have discovered that, in many ways, a candle can really help alleviate some of the discomforts of summer and heighten the enjoyment of this wonderful season.

One of my favorite ways to use a candle in summer is to add a crisp fragrance to the stale recycled air that air conditioning can produce. The effective use of one of our more summery fragrances can really transform the atmosphere of an air-conditioned room from that of a stale refrigerator into a wonderful cool garden with a fragranced breeze blowing throughout. I find that Hedges and Pacific Grapefruit are particularly good for this.

If you are not lucky enough to have air conditioning and must open your windows to allow whatever there is of a breeze to blow in the warm air of a summer city night, why not use a Timothy Jay candle to transport you to a more romantic destination, where the warm breeze is not oppressive but romantic. Light a Fig Geranium and immediately the stifling atmosphere is lifted and you are transported to a Moroccan rooftop looking at the stars in the desert sky. A Lavender candle will take you to a small farmhouse amongst the flower fields of Provence, France or a Blue Pine to a terrace on a Tuscan hillside by the coastal pine forests with the songs of the cicadas ringing in the still pine-infused air. Timothy Jay candles are a wonderful way to fuel your imagination and find enjoyment in the summer heat.

Using Fragrance Candles In Your Home

Fragrance is a key element when it comes to creating an atmosphere in your home. It works on many levels and affects us in so many different ways. All we have to do is inhale to realize the power that fragrance has on our mind set as well as our memories. If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you have certain familiar fragrances that transport you back to a certain moment in your life. I only have to catch the smell of pine trees in late June and my thoughts are immediately whisked back to a summer in the Catskill Mountains when, as young boys, my brothers and I were allowed to camp out overnight in the cool forest.

Realtors always advise you to bake bread or make fresh coffee when you are trying to sell your home. These familiar smells immediately create a ”homey” atmosphere of comfort that envelop the home interior… adding to the livability and warmth. Even better than coffee and bread, a carefully chosen fragrance candle can create that comfortable “at home” atmosphere.

Timothy Jay candles are designed to create a rich and complex fragrance for the homes in which they are burned. They’re a blend of high and low fragrance notes, and create an atmosphere and an impression which should captivate and intrigue the nose rather than assault it. Some fragrances can overcome and overwhelm you with a shock of heavy scent. Immediately you are “overdosed” by waves of familiar odors you think could be cinnamon, apple or vanilla, (I hate when I’m not REALLY sure). At Timothy Jay, I have always tried to blend fragrances to give one the impression of a balance of delicate fragrances that compliment the air.  When you are in the middle of a garden there is not one fragrance but a blend of fragrances… different flowers, fruits, perhaps blossoms from nearby trees and the air itself. Some are subtle and some are much more detectable. Then there maybe grasses: tall, short, deep green, light green and some that may have been recently mowed. There may also be a wild flower meadow nearby or perhaps a clean, fresh ocean breeze. All of these are combined to create a memorable atmosphere.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some individual fragrances that I consider perfection; the gardenia, a garden rose… even a big yellow grapefruit. I have left them on their own as fragrances and then combined them with others as well. At Timothy Jay, I have recreated  “room moods” with single scents as well as fusions of fragrances to literally change the atmosphere in a room. Just as you would not decorate a room by having every single item of furniture, each piece of fabric and every wall color stand out, you do not want to overpower a room with a dominant fragrance. Each candle is designed therefore to create a subtle cocktail of fragrance that evokes treasured memories, or recalls a favorite flower… or moment in time… while it enhances a room rather than overwhelms it. Indeed, a good fragrance is every bit as important for setting the tone of a room as your choice of décor or wall color. Its goal is to compliment the décor as well as the style of the owner.

If you like to experiment like me you may want to try some of our really atmospheric candles, I would suggest Black Orchid as a beautiful blend of tuberose, magnolia and a hint of wild orange or Havana with its masculine mix of crushed geranium leaf and tobacco blossom. And if you prefer a gardenia bush in your midst or a grapefruit grove in your dining room try or Perfect Gardenia or Pacific Grapefruit. But you can be sure that with any Timothy Jay candle, you will be able to create a wonderful atmosphere for your home. And the best thing… the next day… you can completely change your room with a different candle. And it sure is a lot less expensive that redecorating!!

Dubnoff Center Mother’s Day Fair

This Sunday, we went to the Dubnoff Center’s Mother’s Day Boutique at the Santa Monica Women’s Club to help raise money for a wonderful charity. The Dubnoff Center is an amazing organization dedicated to helping children with special educational needs. They take in the kids that others have given up on and, by creating a warm and nurturing environment, give those kids self-esteem and a brighter future. We were thrilled therefore to head down to the beach and sell some candles to people looking for the perfect Mother’s Day gift. Our fragrance candles were a great success with most of the visitors and nearly all of the other vendors taking home a Timothy Jay Candle. The best thing is that 25% of the entire sales went straight to the Center. Thanks to everyone there who made it such a special day and if you want to send your mom a Timothy Jay fragrance candle for Mother’s day, you can by clicking here. I can guarantee it will be beautifully packed with a handwritten note and that it will make her day…

Preparing A Private Label Order

Here are some pictures we took last week which show what it looks like in the shop when we are packing up a big order. This was an order for the 50th anniversary of a major American company with shops around the country. The owners were throwing a huge party for their family, friends and employees and felt that a Timothy Jay Candle would be the perfect “take home” gift for everyone. As it was a golden anniversary, we went with a golden theme with black accents. We used the Black Orchid fragrance in beautiful golden glass. These were wrapped in gold tissue paper and then packed in black sisal in these fabulous boxes we created using a very unique textured gold paper. The boxes in black and gold were then finished with a hand tied black grosgrain ribbon, before being carefully wrapped in protective plastic bags and boxed for shipping.You can see from the pictures how much attention we pay to making sure every candle is perfect and that creating a Timothy Jay Private Label candle is something we take great care and pride in. I hear they went down extremely well at the party!! If you would like to speak to me about creating a candle for an event you are planning, please call me on 323 656 6977 or email me at info@timothyjaycandles.com with your details.

Congratulations to The Cheetah Conservation Fund…

Its been a great awards year  for our customers! A couple of our favorite ladies took home some little golden statues earlier this year and I was very excited to hear on NPR the other day that Dr Laurie Marker of The Cheetah Conservation Fund has won the extremely prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. The Tyler Prize is awarded annually to recognize extraordinary contributions to the fields of environmental science, health and energy and is the environmental equivalent of the Noble Prize. The Cheetah Conservation Fund is a great organization  and I am very proud to have the opportunity to work with them in my very small way. Here at Timothy Jay we have worked with all sorts of charities over the years and it is a very rewarding aspect of our business.

The Origins Of The American Fragrance Candle…

When I lived in New York, the undisputed figurehead of New York High Society was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. From the moment she first came to the public’s attention as the wife of the handsome young senator from Massachusetts, she began to set trends.  However, when she became First lady, everyone woman in America wanted to be her and to dress like her.Her famous inauguration Oleg Cassini taupe wool dress was imitated everywhere and she topped it all off with a genius display of style – when she tipped her Halston pillbox hat on the back of her head. From the moment she wore that “crown” until she died she remained a fashion and style icon. And it is with this remarkable lady that the roots of the American fragrance candle can be found.

While she accompanied the President on an official trip to France in the 1960’s she was introduced to the Rigaud Candles being made by Madame Rigaud. The legend is that Mrs. Kennedy, even though she was a smoker, had a strong aversion to the smell of tobacco smoke that was extremely prevalent at that time (have you seen an episode of Mad Men recently?). She found that the Rigaud Green Cypress Candle was the perfect antidote to the tobacco odor. Bringing them back to the US, she burned them in the White House. The combination of the elegant scent of the candles combined with the incredible redecoration of the White House left a strong impression on all the visitors and people began to talk about Mrs. Kennedy’s famous “dark green candles”.

I first heard about them from my friend Jimmy Mitchell, who was the PR man for the famous El Morocco nightclub in New York (it was much harder to get into than 54!). An incredibly suave and handsome man, he was always at the most fabulous events with the most glamorous ladies and men of New York High Society. He was a regular visitor to Mrs. Kennedy Onassis’ (as she was then) Fifth Avenue apartment for cocktail parties and the like. It was after one of these parties that he had a candle burning in his apartment and I “flipped” when I first noticed it in the room. It was a fragrance like no other…so warm and inviting so enveloping. That’s when he told me about that “dark green candle”. Not long after this, Saks, the famous New York Department store, made the fragrance candles available and the grand dowagers of New York lined up around the block to purchase them! I became a huge fan but, years later when I stopped smoking, I felt that the scent was too overpowering and searched for the perfect, softer alternative.

As so often happens in this life, when other people can’t get something right, you have to make it yourself. My quest to find the perfect candle, led me to creating my own store and finally I created what I like to think of as the heir to Mrs. Kennedy’s “dark green candle”. I worked with a Hungarian perfumer who had the perfect nose and was brilliant at creating many fragrances. Our “child” is a candle I called Celadon, which, since I first introduced it, has been extremely popular especially with people familiar with the history and development of the fragrance candle and the more sophisticated “noses”. While all my candles use a high concentration of fragrance,  (I use a 12% fragrance level – which is higher than a lot of candles available today) in order to achieve a rich atmosphere, the scent is not overwhelming like the original Rigaud (I still have a few at home). My Celadon is my tribute to a remarkable lady whose absence is still strongly felt by all those who look back with longing to a more elegant time.  Oh and by the way, I now count Saks as one of those clients who asked me to create a Private label candle and I hear that some dowagers lined up to buy mine.

Being A Small Business Owner…

I used to be an executive on Madison Avenue working in the advertising industry. I suppose you could say I was one of the original Mad Men! While I loved the work I did there and it was an exciting time, the large companies I worked for were huge bureaucracies. Nowadays life is very different and I like to think of myself not as an executive or a CEO but as an artisan and a small business owner. There is very little time for bureaucracy when you are running a shop and a business like mine. I do a lot of things myself. I sweep the floors. I answer the phones. I glue the wicks. I pour the candles. I do it all. One time a customer called and asked to speak to the President of the company. I said, “Hold on one second. Let me put my broom down and I’ll be right with you!”

However, the rewards are huge though. I love making the products we make and I enjoy that I now consider myself an artisan. I am proud of the happiness we can bring to people by creating a beautiful and well-constructed product. I love the staff who work with me and the community we work in. I always enjoy it when regular or new customers stop by and we can have a chat about the world and candles. I love that the little shop on Harper is a place where friends feel free to pop in and say hello. All in all, it makes for a very different life from Madison Avenue but one which I am very happy with.

Creating and lovingly producing a product brings a great deal of satisfaction. Rather than selling ideas, I sell a product. We put thought and care into making that product so it becomes less about coming up with creative ways of selling it and more about letting the product speak for itself. When people call the shop to say they have just burned one of our candles, loved it and would like to order more, it makes the hard work worthwhile. And the best thing is those phone calls always come on the days when I am worried about business. I like to think of that as the Universe reminding me that I am on the right track.

One of the great pleasures (and responsibilities) of running any small business is employing people. To offer others employment is a great calling and one I take very seriously. I love all my employees and they have all been with me a long time. I hope, as you read this blog, you will get to know some of the characters who help make Timothy Jay a success such as Anil, Anita and Stephen. I have been very lucky that I have also been able to offer a lot of part-time employment to people who are getting themselves on their feet again in early recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. To see how getting and holding down a job in a caring environment can help transform someone and give them a new start in life is truly a miracle and one that through this shop I have been able to witness time and time again. It really is a privilege.

To run any small business, you have to work hard and stick with it through the ups and downs. However, I have found that if you make a worthwhile product and put the work in, you always seem to pull through in the end. And, though Harper Avenue is a long way from Madison Avenue, I couldn’t be happier with where I have ended up.