Local Husband And Wife Team Own Luxury Home Fragrance Brand

Drew and Jessi Osi are the owners of Mahoghany House Candles, located in Homewood, Ill. Photo provided by Mahoghany House Candles.
Drew and Jessi Osi are the owners of Mahoghany House Candles, located in Homewood, Ill. Photo provided by Mahoghany House Candles.

Local Husband And Wife Team Own Luxury Home Fragrance Brand

By Tia Carol Jones

Jess Osi founded Mahoghany House Candles in 2022. Drew Osi has supported his wife through the journey. Jess worked as a nurse and during her pregnancy with her first child, she transitioned to being a stay-at-home mom. She wanted to carve out her own space, using her creativity and she started out making candles as a hobby. As friends and family positively responded to the candles she gifted them, Jess decided to turn the candle making into a business.

The Mahoghany House Candles sell wooden wick candles, with names like HomeBody, Flower Child, Sweeter the Juice, Cocoa Butter Kissed and Citrus Me, which come as full-size candles, votive candles and wax melts. At their brick-and-mortar location in Homewood, people can take candle making classes. There are also sweatshirts with the Mahoghany House Candles’ trademark slogan -- It’s OK to be a lil’ bougie – that are available for purchase.

Drew said the slogan came from Jess and the way she lives, and a nod to how the brand is meant to make people feel luxurious and elegant. He said that the slogan also counters the narrative that Black women deserve less and should settle for the bare minimum.

“People told us early on that these are some bougie looking candles. So, we tried to take and flip the conversation and the word and say it’s OK to be a lil’ bougie,” Drew said.

Drew and Jess want people to feel immersed in an experience that transforms their everyday task into something relaxing when they light a Mahoghany House candle. He said when people light the candles or use the other products, they want people to feel an extension of how they feel when they walk into their boutique, for their home to feel relaxed and inviting. Drew said they chose the location for the boutique because it has an economic footprint, with a small-town vibe. He said they believe that people want nice things close to them, without having to travel to the city to have a great experience.

Drew and Jess collaborated on all of the scents for Mahoghany House Candles, except for two, Cocoa Butter Kissed and HomeBody. Drew said the most popular scent is Cocoa Butter Kissed, which is the one Jess created. He said it is the one that they always have to restock in all the variations that it comes in. One of Drew’s favorites is HomeBody, which is the scent that he created. He said there is a bit of a healthy competition between he and Jess to see which scent is a fan favorite.

Drew said that most of their retail partners are outside of Illinois. Some of those partners are located in places like Atlanta, which Drew said has a solid demographic base for the products Mahoghany House Candles sell. He said what they love about selling the products locally is that they’ve been able to carve out a nice little niche and a footprint of familiarity.

“We do pop-ups in different parts of the city, whether it’s downtown or the South Suburbs, in the Homewood-Flossmoor, Olympia Fields area or closer to the city in the Beverly area. Pretty much everywhere we go, we run into people who have either purchased our products or received one of our products as a gift, or interacted with our product in some way, shape or form,” he said. He added that it feels good to have created a hometown advantage where people see what they are doing with their brand and appreciate it.

Drew said Homewood is the place where Mahoghany House Candles has received the most love and support. He said the community truly goes out of its way to shop small businesses. Drew credited Jess with being the visionary of the brand and the face of the brand. He said she drives the future outlook of the brand and what she envisions Mahoghany House Candles to look like in the next five years.

He described himself as the executor and process improvement guy. He said that working on a brand as husband and wife has required them to flex the most new muscles in their partnership. His advice to married couples running a business is to be mindful of their expectations and the amount of time put into the business and to ensure to carve out time to talk about their personal lives and business, so they don’t lose sight of each other.

His advice to entrepreneurs is to have a solid support system. He added that for people who have the drive to create something physical and tangible that started out as an idea, if they are willing to put in the work for it, there are people out there who want to see them succeed. He said the only way a person can lose is if they quit.

Mahoghany House Candles is located at 1941 Ridge Road, in Homewood, Ill. For more information about Mahoghany House Candles, visit MyMahoghanyHouse.com.

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