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By: Courtney Madeira, who covers local artists, small businesses, and cool hangouts in her blog – The Great Greenvillage.
Across from Noma Square in downtown Greenville, sweet aromas waft out of Magnolia Scents By Design. Founded 13 years ago in Independence, Kansas, the company launched its second store in South Carolina in October of 2014.
Lighting the Fire
Co-founder Tina brought the creative concept to Greenville after falling in love with the city. Prior to moving here herself, Tina had visited family members that had already relocated – she much preferred the atmosphere to her Kansas environment which she lovingly described as “brown and flat.”
According to Tina, expanding to open a Magnolia Scents By Design in Greenville just “made sense.” She’d gained experience working all kinds of corporate jobs, and they seemed to have prepared her perfectly for the entrepreneurial adventure ahead.
In Kansas, Tina spent a lot of time in the original Magnolia Scents By Design – in fact, she made a habit of teasing owner + close family friend Brian about his packaging design. Eventually, he challenged her to come up with something better + improve the store’s branding aesthetic. She did, and the rest is history. Now the dynamic duo are proud co-founders of the Greenville location, and things are going great.
Home, Bath, and Body
Inside Greenville’s most delightful scent shop, shelves of colorful products + decorative displays create a cheery atmosphere. Every inch of tactfully utilized space invites guests to sniff its impressive array of home, bath, and body items.
Magnolia Scents By Design offers soy candles, tart melts, reed diffusers, fragrance oils, essential oils, natural soap bars, bath bombs, lotions, body creams, and liquid soaps. There are also bath salts, body sprays, natural bug repellents, body washes, and mens lines which include shave soaps + beard balms.
Customers can also purchase any of these items via the stores online store, but some decorative and gift items are exclusively available in store. The shop’s best-sellers are its “Orange Chili Pepper” and “Greenville” (green clover and aloe) candles. However, many patrons also value Magnolia Scents By Design because of its candle refill program.
While new 10oz candles cost $18, customers are welcome to bring their empty jars back for $13 refills. It saves about $0.50 an ounce, and it also allows candle enthusiasts to customize their colors and fragrances. Even more exciting is the fact that these candle refills are not limited to Magnolia Scents By Design jars.
For $1.29 an ounce, the store’s staff will fill competitor’s containers, vintage coffee cans, mason jars, etc. These candles not only reduce waste, but they also create opportunities to design unique gifts for weddings, birthdays, and holidays. Once the store receives an empty container, the refill process takes a week to complete. Plus, it’s okay if jars still contain traces of their former selves, as staff members remove and recycle whatever remnants of old candles remain.
Waste Not
Actually, Magnolia Scents By Design makes an effort to reuse whatever possible. According to company policy, “[Its] recipes and processes are designed to minimize waste, and [it recycles] what’s left if [it] can, all the way down to the shipping materials [it uses]. Our earth is precious, and [Magnolia Scents By Design intends] to make her better, not use her up.”
Stacks of repurposed boxes, wrapping papers, and more await packing orders. Magnolia employees even attach special stickers to their parcels to alert recipients that the store’s boxes have been recycled intentionally and that any aesthetic flaws have not simply been overlooked.
Anything that is too distressed for shipping orders gets turned into art installations. The Greenville Magnolia Scents By Design staff consists entirely of artists, and they take great pride in decorating the store for special occasions. For example, these talented ladies fashioned skeletons from paper scraps and other recyclables for a window display at Halloween.
An energy efficient wax burner also supports the company’s green initiative by conserving energy and allowing employees to pour candles in bulk batches. Even bits of bar soap that most people would probably throw out are saved to make sudsy confetti for kids visiting the store to wash up in for fun.
Naturally Special
Of course Magnolia Scents By Design’s desire to preserve the planet is not the only thing setting this space apart from other candle stores. On the contrary, this special spot truly cares about the products it produces and how they might affect customers’ health.
Unfortunately, many consumers fail to realize just how many toxic chemicals are present in most candles + body products. These chemicals find their way into our lungs and bloodstreams and can cause allergic reactions and other harmful side effects. In contrast, Magnolia Scents By Design does everything it can to ensure its products are as natural as possible.
For example, it formulates its bath bombs using non-toxic pigments + fragrance oils – however, these bath bombs don’t foam as vigorously as one might expect because they do not contain any of the chemicals that make traditional bath bombs so surprisingly frothy. They do still fizz, just not as heavily as their potentially irritating counterparts.
Additionally, Magnolia Scents By Design only offers soy candles. Why? Common wax candles are often made with paraffin + can be laden with dangerous parabens. Paraffin candles burn well because they are closely related to fossil fuels like gasoline, which is why they discharge a sort of black soot as they burn. Some candle manufacturers even use wires in their wicks, and those mystery metals are released into the air with every use. None of this is good for the consumer’s health.
Soy candles, however, are a much cleaner option. They leave no soot behind as they burn. Plus, besides being a renewable resource, soybeans actually have the potential to help agricultural farms as the crops replenish nutrients that other crops have leached from tired plots of soil.
Candle Making Classes
All Magnolia Scents by design products are made in-house. It’s a micro-factory + a store, but it’s also an activity space! Private parties, holiday events, and candle making classes make this Noma Square hot-spot a one-of-a-kind destination.
Candle classes are its most popular attraction. They occur at regularly scheduled times, but groups can book classes at any time for special events so long as six or more people are attending. Each class costs $25, lasts about an hour + includes a 10oz soy candle.
Participants choose their scent from the store’s nearly 100 fragrance options – then, each person names her candle and labels it with her name. A knowledgeable staff member walks their group through placing wicks, pouring hot wax, and adding scents. Meanwhile, everyone learns a little bit about candles and Magnolia Scents By Design while having fun with friends, but the most fun part is probably using non-toxic dyes to curate each candle’s custom color!
These candles need to set for at least two-hours before they’re ready to go home – so parties are encouraged to grab dinner, see a show, or enjoy one of downtown Greenville’s many events while they wait. Magnolia Scents By Design is conveniently located near multiple public parking lots, including Richardson Garage, which is free on weekends.
Struggles and Successes
When asked to name her favorite aspect of working at the company, Tina fondly responded, “It’s a different kind of stress, the stress of entrepreneurship versus working in the corporate world. It gives me the chance to be creative, and I love everyone I work with. We have a great staff.”
Co-owning Magnolia Scents By Design has not been without its challenges, of course. Because the store is on the far end of Main Street and slightly back from the road, it does see less foot traffic than some other boutiques. The company is intently focused on getting the word out about its products, initiatives, and events.
Still, things are going well! Candle classes are booked consistently. Happy customers stop in to give their feedback + business surges during the holiday season. Tina attributes the shop’s success to its handmade goods, quality control, and affinity for personal customer service. As she puts it, she + her team, “take care of people.”
Smell for Yourself
Magnolia Scents By Design does more than offer quality home, bath + body products. It even goes beyond helping friends create memories through candle making classes and events.
This small business appeals to a consumer philosophy that says buying power is about more than convenience and savings – it’s about shopping local, caring about the materials being used to manufacture goods, and knowing the people involved in the sales process.
Greenville residents + visitors have the opportunity to do just that by stopping in to see Tina and the rest of the staff at Magnolia Scents By Design. You can also support this cool company by following it on Facebook and Instagram and by helping it celebrates 5 years of business in South Carolina.
To celebrate this special occasion, the store just released 5 new summer scents: Peace & Calm, Apollo, Sedona Jade, Artemis, and Zen Garden. Stop by to pick one up, or order yours online before supplies run out!
