One studio, two ranges, and a joke that went too far

I'm Robyn. Soft n Smelly started because a friend was having a rough month and I thought a batch of daft, over-scented soap would make her laugh. It did. Then she asked for more, then her colleagues did, and somewhere in there I bought a proper soap cutter and admitted it was a business.

The Soft n Smelly side is still exactly that: bars, bath bombs, butters and scrubs that don't take themselves seriously. Bright colours, silly names, genuinely good ingredients. It's the range I make when I want the studio to smell like a sweet shop.

What I didn't expect was how many people asked for something calmer — a gift for a mother-in-law, a housewarming present, something that looks quiet on a shelf. So I started pouring candles, and it became obvious very quickly that they needed their own name and their own voice. That's Juniper & Wick: candles, snap bars and reed diffusers, warmer and more restrained, made on the same bench on the same afternoons.

So: two names, one maker, one address, one basket. Think of it the way a small shop keeps its own-label shelf next to its quieter gift range — different moods, same person weighing the wax and writing the labels.