Slightly over 10 years ago, Traci and Troy Arnsten of Voluspa began pouring candles in their kitchen, but not out of hobby or craft, but for business. They had big goals. Real big - "World Domination" in Traci's words, and the result is a multi-million dollar fragrance empire. The Arnsten's both had experience in the candle business. Traci brought her background in aromatherapy and botany, as well has her tremendous talent for design. Troy's background in business and engineering and turns Traci's creativity into a profitable product with international distribution. Together the duo team is unstoppable and have been featured in LA's "40 Under 40" list and Traci regularly debuts on TV as a celebrity fragrance stylist.
Traci has a flare for creating contemporary and unexpected fragrance combinations. A couple of years ago I asked her where she gets her inspiration and her answer stuns me even today. Most customers imagine, and in most cases it's the truth, that the inspiration must come from an experience or place or item, such as a flower or fruit. In Traci's case, though, she doesn't set out to create a fragrance. She creates a collection. Traci first creates the collection in her mind of what niche or gap she needs to fill in her offering. The design for the collection might come from paper or fabric she's seen in her travels and the pieces for the collection start coming together. She then taps into her incredible ability to create unique names for each of the scents in the collection, and then - she creates the fragrance! (She thinks that's the easy part.) Incredible. It seems so backwards to me, but it makes so much sense in the end. The result is a carefully crafted, well balance, cohesive collection. A grand offering rather than a single note. Brilliant.
The Arnsten's have managed to conquer all the important facets of a successful candle (design, fragrance, burn quality) to an extreme degree. Their designs are unique and trendy. The fragrances are current and well balanced. Their candles burn cleanly and beautifully. But they don't stop there. They have the longest burning candles we know of, and to sweeten the pot, they use a unique blend of natural waxes including soy, coconut and apricot. As if that's not enough, and that's far more than you'll find from most, you get all of this magnificence at an an amazing price. They spoil us and the appreciation shows in their massive fan base.
Voluspa recently launched their new Maison Noir and Maison Blanc Collections that have 
some of the best fragrances we've seen. The success of the multi-wick tin happily continues with a new, absolutely adorable, 2-wick tin. The new 12oz candlepot is super chunky and indulgent. Voluspa regularly launches new collections to keep things lively and we look forward to new products and fragrances.
All of Voluspa products are hand-made in the US and they even source their packaging through US manufacturers. All they need now is a wind-powered plant or carbon neutral manufacturing and we couldn't ask for anything more. But we'll always think of something...
Thanks to Tammie Dufrene for submitting your question for our "Meet The Maker" series. Congratulations on winning a beautiful Voluspa 10oz candlepot.
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