With the May 1 opening of Je T'aime Fragrances, Denise Cassaly finally will be able to indulge her love of fragrances.
By CHRISTINA K. COSDON
Published April 26, 2004
LARGO - Denise Cassaly has two passions - fragrance and fashion.
She lives out her love of fashion with her business, Denise's Pieces Boutique consignment shop on East Bay Drive in Largo. The store is a women's fashions and accessories business she has owned and operated for seven years.
Earlier this month, she closed a second consignment shop in Clearwater that she had owned and operated for seven years. Closing the store gave her the opportunity to do something she had dreamed of for a long time, a chance to work with her passion for fragrance.
This time, it was a business making scented candles.
"I've always wanted to do this," she said. "I had been selling custom candles at my boutiques for five years. I hired someone to make the candles. My best seller has been Southern Charm, a fragrance I created from childhood memories of the magnolias and gardenias growing around my grandmother's front porch in Louisiana."
She began searching for a building to lease.
"I started driving around," she said. "I don't know what drew me to Clearwater-Largo Road, but I was just looking around and I found this place. It was perfect."
What she found was a series of three connected buildings painted light blue. One fronts the roadway and serves as the showroom. The second is the candle-making factory and the third is a cottage that Cassaly, 46, uses as an office and dining area.
With $38,000, she stocked her candle-making inventory, furnished the cottage with desks and business equipment and set up a retail showroom.
Three employees and Cassaly have been spending long hours making colorful scented candles in preparation for the store's opening May 1. The business will be open Monday through Saturday.
The candles are made with natural soy wax. Soy candles have been on the market since 1996 and are growing in popularity.
They burn cleaner than petroleum-based candles, Cassaly said. They don't create as much soot and burn cooler and slower.
"I use a very high grade oil and wax," she said. "I put as much fragrance oil in the candles as the wax will hold. The scents are very strong."
Je T'aime has candles in 30 different fragrances, including her own Southern Charm, and several color combinations.
Votives are priced at $1.99; travel tins are $4.49. Candles in glass jars of different shapes and designs range from $7.99 to $22.99.
