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There were no April Fool’s jokes at the April 1 ribbon-cutting ceremony for Shawna Marshall and Jesse Booker, owners of the Vasshaus Candle Co.
Luverne Area Chamber members greeted and congratulated the new business owners on Main Street Thursday morning at the Mall on Main.
It marked the first day of in-person sales for the couple who started their business last September online.
The couple said their homemade candles smell and look as they’re named.
“We try to be really authentic with our scents,” Marshall said. “So if we say it smells like pumpkin pie, it smells like pumpkin pie.”
Booker is the candle maker, creating wax melts for the two sizes of glass jar candles from shaved wax, fragrant oils and a coloring die.
He brings his experience as a songwriter and guitar teacher at Luverne Street Music to the candle-making process.
“When you’re writing a song, you have different layers of sounds you are working with, and that is how it is with each scent blend — you have low notes, middle notes and high notes that come through.”
Booker assembles each candle and wax melt by hand, using melted soy wax, fragrant oils and ultraviolet-resistant color dyes. He said the soy-based candles are more eco-friendly and burn longer with a warmer glow and lower temperature.
In another eco-friendly service, the couple also has a recycling program where customers who bring the glass jars back to the store receive discounts on their next purchases.
Candles are a hobby for Booker, who works as a research and development process technician at Raven Industries in Sioux Falls. Marshall is a therapist with Southwest Mental Health in Luverne. They have two young children, Avery and Julien.
The coronavirus pandemic gave the couple time last summer to perfect their first fragrance —pumpkin pie.
Each of the Vasshaus (which means reed house in Nordic countries) fragrances is subtle, yet effective.
“We don’t like to be overpowering, in your face,” Marshall said. “Something you would like your home to smell like.”
Some Vasshaus scents emphasize experiences, such as strawberry champagne, eggnog cheesecakes, chocolate-covered cherries and hot chocolate. Other scents emphasize memories, such as Grandma’s kitchen, clean kitchen, By the Fireplace, First Snow, and Winter by the Woods.
A line of aromatherapy scents — tranquility and clarity — have also been created for the home.
The couple launched a website — Vasshaus Candles — in September.
Since then, several of their scents became available at Wildflowers Coffee Boutique in Luverne and at small businesses in Worthington, Currie and Canton, South Dakota.
Framework around the storefront in the Mall on Main already looks like an outline of a house, similar to Vasshaus Candles’ logo. Marshall calls the existing décor fate.
“It’s too perfect to pass up,” Marshall said. “With COVID people have been stuck inside for a year, and they are wanting to get out and go somewhere … and shop local.”
The store size allows room for a work area in the back for making candles as well as room to offer future candle-making classes to the public.
The store will be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays through April with possible weekday hours beginning in May.