The Evil Queen rules at a retailer near you.
The Los Angeles-based maker of candles with attitude has entered Riley Rose in its latest distribution coup. Outside of the Forever 21-owned beauty concept, Evil Queen has expanded its retail territory to 400 boutiques, salons and spas across the U.S.
“It’s always been my goal to be at a bigger retailer and, when I heard about Riley Rose, I knew it would be a great fit because of its branding,” says Ida-Sofia Koivuniem, founder of Evil Queen. “It spreads the word so much more and people find your brand more credible when they see it at a big store like that.”
Koivuniem reveals she hasn’t hit send on a single email to persuade retailers to carry Evil Queen’s candles featuring sayings such as “The Future Is Female,” “Can’t Adult Today,” “Bitches Who Brunch,” and “Babes Against Bullshit.” Instead, she’s relied on Instagram to get in front of stores. “From the beginning, I knew that it was going to be a product that was very Instagrammable,” says Koivuniem. “I was betting people would buy the candle even if they didn’t know what it smelled like because they’d be into the sayings.”
A retail courtship strategy that’s worked well for Evil Queen is to like photos on Instgram tagged with the hashtags #shoplocal and #smallboutique. The stores posting photos with those tags have ended up seeing Evil Queen’s products and considering them for inventory. The brand currently sells some 30 candles, which includes about 10 in a female empowerment range and 20 of its classic offerings. Each candle has a different scent inspired by the saying.
Evil Queen launched in 2016 after Koivuniem spotted a flower shop called Basic Flowers in downtown L.A. As she passed it in a car, she laughed and uttered, “Basic flowers, for the basic bitch in your life.” She immediately realized she had to create a brand with similarly bold humor. “I’m closet funny. I don’t make a lot of jokes, but I have a lot of funny ideas in my head,” says Koivuniem. “This was a way for me to express my personality.”
She was prodded to get Evil Queen off the ground by her friend Shelli Melkonian, who co-owns the shop Style Society and committed to bringing in the brand’s initial collection. That initial collection contained candles that have become perennial bestsellers sporting phrases like “Exhale The Bullshit,” “Boss Babe,” “Damn It’s Early,” and “It’s Your B-Day.”
The name Evil Queen comes from a journal entry Koivuniem ran across when she was developing the brand. At 19- or 20-years-old, she had scribbled Evil Queen in the journal with a logo. “I must have been contemplating using it for a project. I saw it and thought, ‘This is the perfect name for a company that makes sassy candles,’” she says, elaborating, “It’s a good name for my alter ego. Everyone who knows me is always like, ‘Why did you call your company Evil Queen? You are so nice. You’re nothing like that.’ That’s the point. Evil Queen lets me be sassy and funny.”
Evil Queen is about 10,000 candles away from selling its 50,000th candle, a milestone Koivuniem forecasts it will cross this year. The brand is a long way from the $3,000 to $5,000 she plunked down to produce roughly 100 candles at the outset. “I put it on a credit card and hoped for the best,” remembers Koivuniem. “I started small. I didn’t order a thousand candles worth of materials right away. As I sold the candles, I had money to make more.”
Only 24-years-old, Koivuniem has already learned many business lessons from growing Evil Queen. A major one is don’t be afraid to make a mistake. Last summer, Evil Queen released essential oil roll-ons that didn’t knock it out of the park. Koivuniem figures the market was too oversaturated to welcome a newcomer. Still, she’s glad she gave the products a chance. “Making mistakes is something that happens to everyone and the real way to be in business is to just not care,” says Koivuniem. “You can always move forward from a mistake.”
Koivuniem isn’t done enlarging Evil Queen’s product assortment. She’s planning to introduce a luxury candle line that incorporates coconut wax instead of soy wax, the key ingredient in her existing candles. “I have older fans, and I wasn’t necessarily expecting that. My target market was 18- to 30-year-olds, but I have fans in their 30s, 40s and 50s who can afford to buy candles at higher price points,” says Koivuniem. She estimates the candles in an Evil Queen luxury line won’t be priced more than $6 to $8 above the mainstay candles. Evil Queen’s candles are now priced at $20.
Evil Queen makes its vegan candles by hand, and Koivuniem envisions the brand sticking to controlling the painstaking manufacturing process into the foreseeable future. However, she’d like to eventually concentrate on design and spend less time pouring candles. Currently, two employees join Koivuniem in churning out Evil Queen’s merchandise.
“I’m hoping to be at at point where I can have a team of people who know how to make the candles and package them to our standards,” she says. “I still want to do everything in-house and ship them from our warehouse. I want to make sure people are getting the best quality. Hand-pouring candles makes them more personalized. You know that I poured your candle, it wasn’t done by a machine. That adds value to the product.”
