Daisy Fernandes is the creator and owner of Kota Candles, a luxury home fragrance company based in Jersey, Channel Islands. She set up Kota Candles in February 2016 and had been making candles and various other products for a few years, and the candles just stuck. With a love of fragrance and have used essential oils for many years as a therapist, she’s now studying natural perfumery to increase her knowledge delve deeper into her passion for scent.

“Try not to take it too seriously or get offended if its not everyones thing!"

Tell us about your path to setting up your business and what motivated you?

Since a very young age I’ve messed about with lotions and potions, and started making natural lip balms about 8 years ago to sell in a holistic shop where I worked as a therapist. This lead on to candles.. candles just stuck because it combined my love of scent with a product that fills a room with light and fragrance, I was motivated by the want and need to create something beautiful not just to look and but to smell and give an atmosphere to a space. After a course in candle making I quickly discovered about various waxes and oils, some bad and some good so the quality of my candles became paramount and motivated me to make the best candle I could.

How do you work and what is a typical day like for you?

My days are very busy, sometimes it feels like I’m juggling a million things at once. I have 3 children, two jobs and I am studying so lets just say I don’t watch much TV. Sundays are usually my candle making day so I retreat to my workshop and spend a few hours melting, blending and pouring. I make them in batches to save time. During the week its admin, and night times are for my perfumery studies and creating scents.

What are the best parts about your business?

The best parts of my business is the making a product from start to finish, its very therapeutic and rewarding when someone loves it. I enjoy doing the stalls and events meeting like minded people and all the amazing talent on this island.

What has been your greatest struggle as a business owner so far?

I love the creative side but advertising and marketing are a struggle for me. I’m a one girl show so trying to do all the aspects of the business on my own can challenging.

What has been your biggest a-ha moment so far?

A - ha moment is when I set up a workshop and moved out of the kitchen, things got a a lot more organised and a lot less messy or at least the mess was contained.

Do you have any advice for other small business owners?

Advice for business owners is to learn as much as possible about your craft/ trade, keep evolving and try not to lose heart or stagnate. Also try not to take it too seriously or get offended if its not everyones thing.

What currently inspires you?

The change of season is inspiring, colder, darker days and the different scents that come with that. Earthy, rich, spicy, woody and food like smells are what I like in the winter months.

One of the things I love to do is make individual bespoke scents, if you have a particular perfume or scent you would like, get it touch.

You can contact and find me here

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