P.F. Candle Co.’s Los Angeles Flagship Is Filled With Instagrammable Sights And Delectable Smells

P.F. Candle Co. brings Instagram to life at a light- and plant-filled 700-square-foot alcove along a stretch of Sunset Boulevard in the Los Angeles neighborhood Echo Park that’s home to a mishmash of services, eateries and boutiques that are both cool (House of Intuition, Mohawk Bend and Nico & Bullitt) and convenient (Starbucks, Chipotle and The Habit).

The major difference between the shop and social media is digital posts don’t typically encourage smelling. The retail location, P.F. Candle’s first of possibly several, allows the brand to play to its strengths in fragrance as well as aesthetics in a carefully merchandised space packed with products—candles, perfume, room sprays, incense and more—crafted to stimulate noses and eyes.

“I want someone to walk in and say, ‘Damn, it smells good I there.’ Our incense is strong even in the packaging and, when you have a bunch of it together, it smells fresh and invigorating, but also familiar at the same time,” says P.F. Candle founder Kristen Pumphrey. “When you walk in, you don’t smell one scent in particular. It’s all of it together that creates an amazing mélange.”

Pumphrey, who used to cut out pictures of furniture and appliances in J.C. Penney catalogs and assemble them into imaginary rooms, piloted the rustic California look of the P.F. Candle flagship with assistance from L.A. firms Boyle Iron & Wood and Bolt Action. The store occupies a nearly century-old building that was formerly Myrtle, a boutique championing indie fashion designers that moved downtown.

Cubby-hole shelving on one side of the store resembles Excel and Google spreadsheets, tools that have buttressed P.F. Candle’s internal structure, and String System shelving on the opposite side was motivated by Instagram imagery in its customers’ feeds and that performs well on its channel. A back patio teems with potted plants that are for sale.

“Having an understanding of what people like to photograph helped me with the design. I love really structured, organized stores that have a visual impact, which is so important in this day and age,” says Pumphrey, elaborating, “People just love to share their experiences. If their experience is going into a shop, they want to share that. It’s difficult to share a scent via Instagram until they create scratch-and-sniff technology to do that. I need to create the world around fragrances, and that’s all done through visuals.”

“Having an understanding of what people like to photograph helped me with the design. I love really structured, organized stores that have a visual impact, which is so important in this day and age.”

P.F. Candle’s plan is to reposition the store stocks regularly, as often as monthly, to give customers fresh perspectives. The store features the brand’s full assortment, including its classic line of soy candles in its signature amber jars available in a dozen scents and its terra line of natural soy candles in three scents. Terra candles are priced at $30 for an 8-oz. size, and classic candles are $18 for a 7.2-oz. size. To complement P.F. Candle’s products, the flagship showcases items from third-party brands such as Falcon, Kinto, Wild Honey Botanicals and Etta + Billie.

After P.F. Candle gets the hang of retail at its Eastside location, Pumphrey posits P.F. Candle could expand within L.A. to a Westside location. “We want to do more stores. I love being able to connect directly with our customer,” she says. “I think this makes me sound like a control freak, but I love being able to control the customer experience A to Z from how they smell to who they talk to and where they buy. It’s really cool to provide the experience we want.”

Pumphrey views P.F. Candle retail as supplemental to the more than 1,000 independent shops in the brand’s wholesale network. Excluding its store, the brand’s distribution is split between independent shops, international accounts, direct-to-consumer operations and large retailers. Whole Foods, Urban Outfitters and CB2 are among P.F. Candle’s large retail partners.

In 2018, the brand’s sales jumped 75%, but they were flat the year before as it coped with Madewell’s decision to retreat from P.F. Candle in favor of a private-label candle selection. Madewell’s move impressed upon Pumphrey the need to diversify P.F. Candle’s income stream. Discussing Madewell, she says, “It was really informative for us. It’s always really good to be humbled.”

“This makes me sound like a control freak, but I love being able to control the customer experience A to Z from how they smell to who they talk to and where they buy. It’s really cool to provide the experience we want.”

P.F. Candle began as Pommes Frites Candles in 2008 (Pommes Frites is a play on Pumphrey’s last name), and its roots are in Pumphrey’s fascination with the maker community. She started focusing on makers in a New York publishing job that fizzled and continued writing about them on her own blog. She relocated from New York to Austin and leapt into the maker domain herself with candles in vintage molds and books safes she sold on Etsy. In 2011, Pumphrey left Austin for L.A. and decided to commit herself to making her brand work.

In 2013, a 4,000-piece order from West Elm firmly established Pommes Frites Candles beyond Etsy. Pumphrey’s husband Thomas Neuberger, now co-owner and general manager of P.F. Candle, joined the brand to lend a hand with fulfilling the order. Around the same time, the brand received an order from Steven Alan, a retailer no longer on its wholesale roster, and Pumphrey changed its name to P.F. Candle to suit Steven Alan’s upscale milieu. In 2016, P.F. Candle pulled off of Etsy. The brand today has a staff of roughly 50 people and manufactures its own candles at a factory in L.A.

As the brand was getting underway, Pumphrey assessed the candle market and noticed there were luxury offerings (think Diptyque), standard fare that was everywhere (Yankee Candle), and handmade candles. She believed P.F. Candle could plug a gap in the market for a design-oriented candle specialist that wasn’t exorbitant. With prestige candle sales soaring in the years since its launch, P.F. Candle has faced a ballooning number of competitors and copycats, but they haven’t blunted its business.

“It’s been interesting to see which ones rise and have staying power. There are some great brands doing interesting things with scent and design. In general, the more people that are interested in quality candles, that’s good for us,” says Pumphrey. Peering into the future of P.F. Candle, she adds, “We aren’t looking to get funding, open a bunch of stores and grow faster than we are able to. Growing 75% last year was difficult enough. We want to make sure we are doing it in a sustainable way.”

Feature image credit: Hollin Brodeur