For the first few years of business, one fragrance held the blue ribbon slot in our best seller list. This particular fragrance was always described to us as “mild and complex” “mellow and masculine” and “like a very attractive man” and we responded to email after email from shops requesting this candle. We sold a ton of them. I created the first run of Tobacco Bay candles in the kitchen of my (and my roommates) house while in college at Auburn University and for years it was the number 1 seller in the lineup but it was in the brutally warm and long Summer months in 2017 that a new candle emerged to take the throne in our candle hearts to became the best selling candle that we produce: Succulent. Our Succulent candle was inspired by the greenhouse at RJ and Katherine Reynolds, Reynolda House in Winston Salem, North Carolina where, once entered into, you were transformed into a life in which everything you encountered was thoughtfully placed, vibrant, and fully inspired by beauty. The gardens surrounding the greenhouse were vast and thriving and the architecture of each building splendidly captured the vision of Reynolds wife, Katherine. The greenhouse built in the early 1900’s was still green, damp, and flourishing with plants large and small.

We knew when producing this candle that most succulents do not throw a fragrance. We get the question often - What is a succulent supposed to smell like? This is one of the few fragrances that we created with a specific vibe in mind, not a list of fragrance notes (Other candles like this; Cannabis and Wooden no.2) When you light this candle you will get notes of Pear and Agave followed by Cactus and Wild Flower and then leveled out with a mellow Rosewood. It is a bright, delicate, and modern fragrance and the color of terra cotta and muted greens immediately comes to mind when lit.

We were intentional about releasing this candle at a time in which we were getting wedged into a “man candle” category. I began to feel the tension to produce overtly masculine fragrances and knew I wanted to tell a story that was balanced and was a full representation of every aspect of myself and my surroundings. The Succulent candle was not only a response to the call for a floral candle that fills the room gracefully, it was an evolution of Great Bear and the continuation in a story of fragrance, both the ones that serve as reminders for our sweetest memories and the ones that will define the new memories that we create every single day.

Jake Carnley