Today we’d like to introduce you to Kathryn Way.
Kathryn, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started making candles in 2015 after being diagnosed with PTSD. After my address had been posted online by a hate group, I felt very scared in my own home. My therapist suggested many ways I could try to make my home feel safer, cozier, more “mine.” One of the things she suggested was getting some scented candles. When I was shopping for candles, I was largely unimpressed with selection, so I just learned how to make my own. Sensory-rich things are still important for my mental wellness, so I would make candles and perfumes and custom fragrances for myself even if no one else wanted to buy them. Candles aren’t the only I make for Lowborn, though. I started restoring vintage furniture years ago, but in the last year, I started learning how to make things myself. This is a super common thing in my life — if I can’t find exactly what I want, I just figure out how to make it myself. I do this with art, furniture, fragrances, decor, everything. It turned out that people wanted to buy some of the things I made, so I started Lowborn Goods.
Has it been a smooth road?
Honestly, this whole process has been awesome for me which is a tremendous privilege. When I first started selling candles in 2015, I had an Etsy store called Old Lady Baby. I eventually stopped using Etsy because their prices got too steep for small makers like myself, and then I got too busy with my career and just stopped making things for a bit. I would still make candles for gifts and for loved ones, but it wasn’t until my friend Michael Gonzales at Protolab convinced me to collaborate with him on a limited line of concrete candles that I finally started making candles professionally again. Michael is an incredibly talented designer and does everything from fabrication to commercial and residential design to remodels to art installations, and he designed these awesome molds for me to put my candles in. He first designed a model to 3D print, then made a silicone mold out of that print, and then the silicone mold is used to make the concrete vessels. They look so cool and I love putting nice smells in them.
When I released that line with Protolab last year, all the people who bought from me years before were buying from me again. They wanted me to release old fragrances I sold before and were super eager to buy the new stuff. This convinced me to just return to it fully. I am a comedian but was taking a bit of a stage break to focus on my mental health, so I kind of focused all of my creative energy into Lowborn and it’s actually been quite healing. I work as a designer, social media manager, writer, photographer, etc. so I’m not using Lowborn to pay all my bills, it’s not all or nothing. It’s just really cool that people want to give me money for things that I love making.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Lowborn Goods story. Tell us more about the business.
For Lowborn Goods, I make candles using custom fragrances that I make myself, layered fragrances that tell a whole story. I also restore vintage furniture and build my own new furniture. I make art and decor pieces, and I even help other people design their own interiors. I’m most proud of the fact that I’m making things that contribute to someone’s quality of life in some small way. You can make your home feel cozier, light a little candle that smells lovely, wear a fragrance that reminds you of a cherished memory — I get to help people surround themselves with soothing, happy, beautiful, amazing-smelling things so that they can do what I did when I made my apartment my safe little sanctuary.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Design is always changing, and that is so exciting to me! The older I get, the more comfortable I am just totally embracing trends. I think there’s a perception that people become less-adventurous and kind of stiff the older they get, but I find the opposite is true for me. There’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure, there’s just pleasure! I recently put up pretty trendy wallpaper in my home, and I am ALL over it. I hesitated at first because the patterns I chose were quite trendy, but I’m so glad I leaned into the trendy stuff and just went for it. I look forward to riding the waves of new trends as they come. There is also something to be said for making things that are NOT life necessities. No one needs a candle or a coffee table to live. These are just nice little treats, honestly, they’re perks. I have some strong feelings about attaching a monetary value to things that people NEED to live, and they will probably make your dad mad, so I won’t go deep into it. But it is very sweet and freeing to make things people can just buy if they feel like doing something nice for themselves.
Pricing:
- Glass candles = $20
- Concrete candles = $30
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lowborngoods.com/
- Email: hello@lowborngoods.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/lowborngoods
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lowborngoods/
Image Credit:
Kathryn Way
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