Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Qian.
Hi Catherine, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started AsianBobaGirl with my mom back in 2019 selling cotton boba bags – drink carriers that we first found in Taiwan (aka the origins of boba). I had just moved out of my childhood home to pursue my marketing dreams in LA, and my sister just moved out for college. With both of her daughters out of home, my mom had empty nest syndrome. I wanted to find an activity for the two of us to do together and we decided we would make DIY boba bags to pursue her passion for sewing & my enjoyment for marketing while indulging in both of our love for boba.
There was no expectations for this mother-daughter project to go big – it was simply a way for us to spend time together doing something we both enjoyed. Weekends turned into trips to the fabric store, cutting fabric together, and brainstorming ideas on the next coolest feature to add to our bags. Our Etsy store started to build some traction through some social media posts and we hosted our first vendor event at a night market, but it wasn’t until I had the idea of the boba candle that things really took off.
In February of 2020, just before the pandemic hit, my mom and I began brainstorming new boba-themed products to make together. We both developed a new interest in candles, and we noticed that boba milk tea-scented candles, as well as many of my favorite Asian childhood desserts and snacks, were nowhere to be found in your average retail store. With the quarantine in place, it was more difficult to see my mom on a regular basis, so over the next few months, my boyfriend (and now business partner) and I dedicated our time to learning the art and science of candlemaking. We experimented with many different types of soy wax, hundreds of combinations of fragrance oils, and countless variations in our candle-making process. With every Asian dessert-themed candle launch first comes my mom’s Asian mom stamp of approval on both the color and fragrance of the candle.
It’s been nearly 1.5 years since we launched the candle line in our business. Since then, we have been featured in Buzzfeed and Cosmpolitan, own our own Shopify website, and have thousands of sales in both candles and boba bags combined. We now have our own LLC which we named after my mom, who consistently reminds me of how proud she is of where AsianBobaGirl is today.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced in our journey is creating the scents used in our candles. We quickly found that the fragrances that we needed were not readily available for purchase. We weren’t able to buy “boba milk tea” or “Chinese steamed bun” scented fragrance oils, so we had to mix and match different fragrances together to create our own custom scents. Every candle that we have released has had weeks of fragrance recipe testing where we test out different combinations of fragrances and scent adjustment until we really felt that we captured the essence of that particular drink, snack, or dessert in a candle.
We also quickly learned creating soy candles was a more complex science than we thought. Candlemaking is as much a science as it is an art, and with so many different types of wax out there, it took many experimenting to perfect our process. Our studio needed to be at a perfect temperature at a stable level of humidity with little to no wind. The fragrance oil and soy wax needed to be exactly measured out and mixed, then poured at specific temperatures, otherwise the candle fragrance may not be as strong as needed. Even the storing the freshly poured candles needed to be done in a cool dark location, otherwise the candle color may begin to change.
We’ve been impressed with AsianBobaGirl, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
We specialize in creating products that are inspired by Asian culture – specifically its food and drinks. We were inspired by the many questions we received about boba, and we wanted to increase representation on our favorite childhood foods through candles. We’re incredibly proud of being able to share these scents and types of foods with curious customers who may not have known about these Asian dishes or desserts before.
Pricing:
- $15+ – Mini Boba Candle (4 oz. // 20-28 hr burn time)
- $25+ – Medium Boba Candle (8 oz. // 40 – 45 hr burn time)
- $32+ – Large BobaCandle (12 oz. // 60 – 84 hr burn time)
- Free shipping!
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.shopbobagirl.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asianbobagirl/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/asianbobagrl
- Other: https://www.etsy.com/shop/asianbobagirl/
