Hi, I'm Tania.
Lovelore began with love, the deepest kind I know: the love I have for my daughter, Jaylene. She's the quiet thread through everything I make. Jaylene loved the color green, the color of things that keep growing. I like to think Lovelore is a little like that.
The soap came later. I have sensitive skin, and one day in the store I turned a bar of soap over and actually read the label. I couldn't pronounce half of it. I put it back on the shelf and thought, what if I just made my own?
I didn't jump in right away. For about six months I watched every soap-making video I could find. I took notes, compared recipes, and probably knew more about lye and oils than anyone should before making a single bar.
When I finally made my first batch, it was a goat's milk soap. To my surprise, it actually turned out well. My son was so excited, more for me than for the soap, I think. He could see I'd found a new adventure. That's the moment I knew I wasn't going to stop.
Not every batch goes the way I hope. One afternoon my sister came to visit, and we decided to film me making soap. We spent so long on the setting, the background, the lighting, every little detail, that I measured wrong. I didn't add enough lye to the oils.
We finished filming, stepped into the kitchen for a bit, and when I came back to check on the mold, there was a layer of oil sitting on top. The soap hadn't set. It was a disaster, and honestly, it made me sad.
But it taught me something I still carry into every batch: soap doesn't care how beautiful the lighting is. It needs your full attention. Now, when I make soap, the camera can wait. It's just me, the recipe, and the care each bar deserves.
After that, I wanted to try everything. The more complicated the recipe, the better. But the more I made, the more I kept coming back to simple: a few good ingredients, made with care. Sometimes the simplest things are the ones that last.
Every bar is made in small batches at home, with simple ingredients I can name and trust, the same care I'd give my own family.
The candles came next. The ones I bought often left me with a headache, so I set out to make a cleaner kind of candle: hand-poured soy coconut wax, with a scent that fills the room softly instead of overwhelming it. Every candle holds a story. Some are moments from my own life I never want to forget. Others are places I've always dreamed of seeing but have never been able to visit. Each one comes with its own story card, so when you light it, you're carried somewhere, into a memory or into a dream.
The oyster shells come from the sea, my happy place. The hush of a wave rolling in, soft sand beneath my feet, the crisp smell of salt in the air: it's where I breathe easiest. On Florida's west coast, I chase the sunset, camera in hand, waiting for the moment the whole sky turns to gold. And when night falls, I look for the moon. It holds me every time, and in its light I think of the people I love, near and far, and the one I carry with me always.
Each shell holds a little of that light. I clean it by hand, lay the botanical paper petal by petal, and finish the edge in gold leaf, the same gold the sky turns just before the sun slips into the sea.
A golden sky. The moon on a quiet night. The people I think of when I see it. These are the small things in life, and yet when I look back, I realize they were never small at all. They were the big things all along.
Lovelore is love for this life, for the people who hold us, and for who we're becoming. Every piece is made with the same care that began with one simple bar of soap, and a love that began with Jaylene.
With love,
Tania