Today we’d like to introduce you to Bobbi Wenzler and Kathy Michalski.
Hi Bobbi and Kathy, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Espérer sisters started with an idea to make candles that give back. Espérer means to hope in French and the business is run by us two sisters, Bobbi & Kathy.
Since our launch in 2019, we have given back to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). This is so important to us since our father has schizophrenia and we want to get people talking about mental health to end the stigma.
Our candles are made with soy wax which is a plant based wax that is renewable, clean-burning, biodegradable, and free from animal ingredients. Our fragrances and blends have always been phthalate free and most of them include essential oils. We want products we feel safe making and using ourselves!
Our room sprays are made with skin safe fragrance oil blends we use in our candles and a base that is alcohol free, vegan, gluten free, and phthalate free.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Covid-19 definitively impacted our business!
Since our products feature fragrances, events really helped our business grow since customers could smell all our fragrance options and choose their favorites. We pivoted to more online presence during this time and have been very lucky to have a few retail stores carry our products.
Our time together changed a lot too, weekends making candles together turned into weekends making candles solo. That made inventory management much harder since we needed to keep more supplies in both places instead of making products together and splitting them.
The last big impact has been our product sourcing – starting our business we focused on working with other small businesses and using supplies that were made in the US. That dramatically changed as supplies went out of stock frequently during the pandemic and we had to find other vendors multiple times to keep our business open.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We hand-pour all our candles in small batches out of Minneapolis, MN, and Milwaukee, WI. We are a sister run business so each product has been made by one of us. 🙂
We are known for giving back – it has been the core of our business from day 1 and it’s deeply personal to us. We want to get other people talking about mental health and love doing events and hearing people’s stories and sharing ours too. Giving back is so important to us, that we researched other businesses that do the same and choose to get some of our supplies from them too.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
We live 5 hours apart from each other! If you ever see us together at a show, one of us took a long trip to be there (and likely had a car or jeep full of supplies too, hah).
Pricing:
- 4 oz candles – $12
- 8 oz candles – $24
- 10.5 oz candles – $30
- 4 oz room sprays – $14
Contact Info:
- Email: sayhello@esperersisters.com
- Website: https://www.esperersisters.com/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/esperersisters
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/esperersisters/
Image Credits
Bobbi Wenzler
Kathy Michalski
