The scent of a woman in business
- Charles Reams
- Jul 17
- 3 min read
If you’re going to follow the scent of a woman, Al Pacino, you also get candles, and guess who’s coming to dinner, big boy?
Katrina McDaniel does it all. Why twiddle her thumbs while waiting for something to happen. She makes it happen.
By believing in herself, learning from others, and following her passion, she is creating a business that carries the sweet scent of a fistful of dollars, just ask Clint Eastwood.
McDaniel is the owner of Scent and Soul Candles, and her unique, handmade candles evoke sensory memories and make everyday life something special for her customers.
“I still work full time in the mortgage industry,” McDaniel says. That's my 9 to 5, and I was doing that at the time that I started my candle business.”
McDaniel started creating her own candles in 2020, but didn’t launch her business until the following year.
“It started out as a hobby,” she says. “I have a love for candles, and I couldn't go to the store like I like to, to just enjoy them, sniff them, buy them,” due to the pandemic, she says.
Soon after she started making her own candles, McDaniel’s niece encouraged her to try selling them.
“It kind of snowballed from there,” she says. “But I took a year to work on my formula and figure out just how to make the candle the way that I wanted it to be – a really good quality product. I didn't want to just jump in and start selling right away. It took a lot of trial and error.”
Scent and Soul started with vendor events and local markets. As McDaniel networked with other vendors, she learned about The Business Entrepreneur Academy at Village Launch and decided to sign up.
“I still have some work to do, but it's helped me become more organized and strategic in how I approach things. It's also connected me with a lot of great people,” she says. “No one can know everything. So sometimes just talking to other people that are in the same field or doing similar types of businesses helps me get ideas and understand where I could have done something differently or maybe improve another area of my business. It has helped me tremendously, tremendously.”
Though McDaniel now sells her creations online, she is still actively involved at local markets throughout the year.
“I absolutely love making candles and experimenting with different scents,” she says. I love talking to my customers at the vendor events, which is odd for me and which I really didn't think I would enjoy, because I'm kind of an introverted person. But when it comes to the candles, it just flows differently.”
When a customer buys a Scent and Soul candle, they are really buying a feeling.
“Everything is based off of old school R&B music,” McDaniel says, adding that all of the scent names are inspired by classic song titles. “Most of them, I listened to growing up, my mom's favorites or some of my favorites, or something that I just know, everybody kind of likes.”
She says she doesn’t match a song with a scent until after she makes the scent.
“I want to connect an emotion to the scent, and I don't know what it makes me feel until I actually experience it,” she says. “I love candles so much and I love music so much, and they're both healing for me – like a little cozy place that you can go to when everything is crazy. I feel like candles and music both give you that feeling.”
Learn more at scentandsoulcandles.com.
