HOME FRAGRANCE FIRM JOINING HIGH STREET AFTER ONLINE SUCCESS
A WAITRESS who didn’t want to be “doing that forever” set up her own home fragrance business that has now opened its first physical shop after online success.
Jodie Thomas had worked as a waitress for five years when she started to think about starting her own business.
She began making her own candles and after perfecting them launched her venture Charismatic Cat online in February 2017 – working from a small workshop in Botwnnog on Pen Llŷn.
It has been a big success, boosted by social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Now she is bucking the trend by also opening a physical store in Pwllheli.
Jodie, 24, said: “I was working as a waitress when I first started thinking about starting the business, and I had been a waitress five years at that point.
“I just knew that I didn’t want to be doing that forever and so I ordered a few bits to have a go at making candles initially.
“I tested them extensively for safety and performance, perfected them and then launched the business whilst still working as a waitress.
“I slowly started adding more home fragrance products into the range and it just sort of spiralled from there.”
Joining the social media channels has seen her secure sales across the UK, with her TikTok videos getting 640,000 views in the past 28 days.
While she could have carried on just trading online, she decided to take the plunge in a bricks and mortar store in a joint venture with a friend who uses half the store to sell products to raise funds for a local, small independent cat rescue centre.
She added: “We opened the shop fully aware we would be opening in strange times.
“But after stocking my products in a few other shops in the area over the last couple of years, I really wanted somewhere that was my own.
“So we decided to open as a joint venture in Pwllheli. I have a large range of my products in there and the rest is either other makers’ products or products to raise money for a small local cat rescue.
“We were up for the challenge of being part of the ‘High Street.’
“We called the shop Likeminded, as that’s what we are, in terms of both of us wanting the best for the stray and abandoned cats and kittens in the area.
“I’m cat-obsessed myself and have four, hence the Charismatic Cat business name!
“I named it after one of them – Phoebe – who I found at the side of a road in 2015 and she’s such a character now.”