Sobremesa with Kristen Pumphrey, founder of P.F. Candle Co.
On building a 20-year business, from an Etsy shop to a cult-favorite brand
Welcome to Sobremesa, an interview series featuring some of the most creative people around the world. Each conversation explores the stories, creative processes, and perspectives that inform the artist’s work. Today, I’m excited to share my conversation with the co-founder of one of my favorite LA brands, P.F. Candle Co.
Meet today’s guest 🧃
Kristen Pumphrey is the co-founder of P.F. Candle Co., a Los Angeles–based home fragrance brand independently owned and operated by Kristen and her husband, Thomas Neuberger. Kristen started the brand almost 20 years ago, in 2008, after losing her job in publishing and deciding to create her own opportunities by opening an Etsy store. With a few candle-making supplies and a clear vision, she set out to build one of the most beloved scent companies worldwide.
I sat down with Kristen to talk about the behind-the-scenes process of creating some of P.F. Candle Co.’s best-selling candles, what it takes to turn your passions into a business that generates revenue, and the ways she protects her peace as a founder in the era of ‘building in public’. Let’s dive in!
Florencia: After almost 20 years running P.F. Candle Co., what helps you keep the work feeling fresh, playful, and creatively fulfilling?
Kristen: One way I see things through fresh eyes is through how others present us, especially internationally. Seeing a store in Japan or France present P.F. Candle Co. as a California brand distills what’s important and gives me permission to experiment while keeping those core “through-lines.” You also have to love running the business so that you don’t lose that beginner’s stance.
Florencia: I’ve always wanted to ask you about your iconic branding! The amber jar and typography have remained consistent since starting the brand in 2008. How do you balance the urge to rebrand with staying consistent to your vision?
Kristen: People often think of creativity as “sparks,” but I’ve learned it takes discipline to stay true to a creative vision. I’m also a Virgo born in the Year of the Ox, so I’m incredibly stubborn!
One way to innovate is by releasing limited-edition collections throughout the year that allow us to scratch that creative itch while keeping the core brand consistent. We did collaborations with Haricot Vert and Grillo’s Pickles, which felt like playing “dress-up” for a day. They’re very easygoing and playful, and at P.F., we care about quality but don’t take ourselves too seriously.
“We might try different fonts or scents, but our core — the DIY aspect, the California identity, hasn’t changed since day one.”
Florencia: Can you share a little about the process of developing a new product? How does a new scent start? Emotions, memories, or something else?
Kristen: The emotional component is so important to fragrance. We actually developed an entire line based on emotions and how a scent is meant to make you feel, but I’ve found that our best work happens when we’re chasing a specific ingredient or a fragrance note.
Take our scent Arroyo Oak, for example. I was really obsessed with the idea of creating a frankincense candle. We spent a lot of time getting it together, smelling raw materials, and figuring out what would pair well with frankincense. We ended up building the story from the note itself because the blend reminded us so much of the dry creek beds of the Arroyo Seco, near where I live in Pasadena.
That’s one way to do it, where the fragrance is the seed for the story. But you can also approach it from the opposite direction, where you start with a final image and fill in the fragrance notes to match. Our Golden Coast scent was one of the first ones we developed this way. I wanted to capture the entire image and feeling of Big Sur—the sea salt, the redwoods, and that specific scent of baking sage in the sun we found on a hike along the Ewoldsen Trail. We knew we wanted it to feel dry but still marine and mineral, and bringing those notes together created one of our best-sellers.
Because we’re digital-forward, that imagery is everything. In our process, my development manager creates a mood board at the same time we’re working on the scent notes. When we pitch to our fragrance house, we send them the whole package: the concept, a description of the vibe, and the images. All of those pieces together help the perfumers come up with the final concept.
From there, they’ll send us three or four samples for every pitch, and we’ll iterate—sometimes up to four rounds—really drilling down and asking them to pull back on certain components. Finally, we test it across different products, from candles to diffusers, just to make sure the scent works perfectly across every format.
Florencia: DIY culture and crafting are at the core of your brand. You started selling your products on Etsy. Many newsletter readers are in the process of turning a passion project into a business. I think you are a great example that persistence and discipline can make that happen. What advice do you have for doing this intentionally?
Kristen: I started P.F. Candle Co. because I was working in publishing and lost my job during the 2008 recession. At the time, Etsy was just kicking off, and there was this huge resurgence of what people call ‘grandma crafts’ today, things like cross-stitch and handmade goods.
In those early days, I was incredibly scrappy. I was working multiple part-time jobs and essentially living in the gig economy before it even had a name. I’d make pillows, book safes, or buttons and constantly ask myself, ‘I can make it, but can I sell it?’ I was just trying to figure out how to monetize my craft to grow a business for myself.
However, once we started hiring staff and growing P.F. Candle Co., I realized how easy it is to steamroll your love for the craft by getting lost in the business operations. I’ve had to ‘deprogram’ myself from that early scrappy mentality where I thought every single thing I made had to be something I could sell. You have to protect what you love about the craft itself.
I try to take on craft projects that have absolutely nothing to do with candles or fragrance. I quilt and knit. I know I cannot monetize those things because I’m just not that good at them, but that’s the beauty of it!
There is real value in building a life for yourself that is private, away from the public eye. I think anything you put online naturally becomes publicized and monetized in a way; you’re essentially creating a brand version of yourself. When that happens, it starts to feel like a role you’re playing rather than an embodiment of who you actually are.
There are a lot of things I just don’t talk about online. I don’t really share things about my daughter or my time playing tennis and doing yoga. I also do a lot of community advocacy for cycling and safe streets, and I spend time watching Survivor with my family. Keeping those parts of my life private ensures I have things that belong to me, separate from the brand.
“I’ve had to ‘deprogram’ myself from that early scrappy mentality where I thought every single thing I made had to be something I could sell. You have to protect what you love about the craft itself.”
Florencia: On that note, what is your take on building a personal brand as a founder and partaking in social media in that way? Currently, we hear a lot about how the most successful companies are those whose founders build in public.
Kristen: Yeah, you can feel a lot of pressure to build in public. I think I did that much more in the beginning when we were really small, back in that 2015 era. I used to put a lot more of my life online and had TikTok going for a while.
I was getting some viral videos and things like that, but it just ended up sucking the joy out of being online for me. It gave me so much anxiety that I eventually just realized I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep up with that ‘performance.’ And who’s to say whether or not that would have even made me more successful in the long run?
There’s always this element of comparison where you look at someone else and think, ‘Oh, well, they look amazing.’ But of course they do—everyone’s life looks amazing online because they’ve curated it to look that way.
I started a Substack a couple of years ago, and I’ve been posting regularly. I really like showing up online in that specific way because I love to write. That’s actually how I started this business, with a blog.
Florencia: Now when it comes to P.F. Candle Co., how do you balance putting out content that feels true to the brand but also generates sales?
Kristen: It’s funny because we had really good growth on Instagram for many, many years. Then we had a brief stint on TikTok, and while we had some viral moments, I eventually had to sit down and ask: Who is this serving? During that time, our growth was actually declining because we were going overboard trying to create this trendy content.
We’re growing in engagement and follower count again because the change we made was simply showing up consistently. Consistency for us means creating content that can be delivered time and time again. It’s not flashy, and it’s not trendy—we don’t even hop on trends anymore.
Florencia: Do you have any secrets to overcome creative blocks?
Kristen: I physically reset my whole space. I think this works because you’re touching physical objects and dealing with very low-pressure decision-making. You’re making these really quick, rapid-fire decisions, but you’re also able to move through it in a bit of a creative flow state—like arranging books by subject or by height.
The other thing I do is put timers on myself. Being aware of the clock, setting a timer for just five minutes and doing what I can in that window is usually enough to take that good flow energy and ‘rebound’ off of it back into a true creative state.
Florencia: What are some of your favorite ways of finding inspiration outside of the internet?
Kristen: I love visiting flea markets, vintage stores, museums, going to the movies, going for walks and bike rides around my neighborhood in new cities. I’m a homebody, but traveling is a great way to turn the prism in your mind for inspiration too.
I’m reading The Organized Mind right now, which explores why the mind works the way it does and how it can adapt in an increasingly chaotic digital world where things seem to move faster than ever.
By way of The Traitors, we started watching Survivor. There’s something comforting about having such a deep well of seasons (50!) to tap into. We’ve watched five seasons so far.
Florencia: Is there anything exciting coming up that we should keep an eye out for?
Kristen: We’re releasing a new scent called Saltwater Jasmine. This was previously a limited-edition scent, but we’ve gotten so many requests to bring it back—and it just feels really fitting with the jasmine season here in Los Angeles and summer almost upon us. Other than that, we’ve been in the lab sudsing up a completely new product. I feel like we’re learning to make candles all over again, which is exciting for a company almost 20 years old.
Thanks so much to Kristen for her time and generosity answering all the questions for Sobremesa! Saltwater Jasmine is already out, check it out at pfcandleco.com and subscribe to Kristen’s newsletter, Good Atmosphere, here on Substack.
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Email me at florenciaornelas.f@gmail.com if you are interested in collaborating or follow along on the other app. Talk to you soon!
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thank you so much!!! it was such a delight to chat with you <3
I love this so much. As a Californian living abroad I always have a PF candle burning because they do such a fantastic job of bringing my mind home when my body can’t be there. I have never connected to a candle that way so I deeply appreciate hearing their process and how important their local inspirations are. What a cool lady!