Chesapeake Bay Bliss

Mei Xu, the creator and owner of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blissliving Home, has one thing in common with Andy Warhol — they both found fortune in Campbell's soup cans. Warhol painted them; Xu made them into candle molds. Warhol exhibited the results in a West Coast gallery and introduced the country to pop art. Xu introduced the country to pop candles, and launched a major home fragrance brand.

Xu recalls the venture she started years ago in the basement of her Maryland home. “The first candle collection featured modern pop colors such as lavender, lime green and mango — colors that weren't available on the American market in the mid-1990s,” she said.

Her encouragement for the venture came from her husband, David Wang, with whom she moved to the United States in 1991. Before that, Xu, who grew up in Hangzhou, China, lived in Beijing, where she earned a B.A. in American Studies from the Beijing Foreign Studies University and worked as a project manager for the World Bank. After moving to the United States, she enrolled at the University of Maryland to pursue a master's degree in journalism and communications.

Following her 1992 graduation and a year of work, Xu said she felt unfulfilled and began exploring other opportunities. “I have always wanted to apply my aesthetic senses to a creative line of work,” she said, noting that her husband persuaded her to try candles.

Her design inspiration came from a 1994 trip to Ambiente in Frankfurt, Germany, where Xu and Wang identified an opportunity in the American market for candles in modern color stories and unique fragrance pairings. “We started to work with the best fragrance vendors in the industry to develop sophisticated, multi-note scents,” she said. “Chesapeake Bay Candle became an instant success.”

After partnerships with Target, Kohl's and Pier 1 Imports helped to grow the company into one of the country's largest candle vendors, Xu began applying her aesthetic senses to other categories. Blissliving Home, her interior lifestyle brand of home accessories, duvet and sheet sets, bed skirts, decorative pillows and home fragrances, launched in 2005 and is sold worldwide to consumers through retailers, boutiques, an online store and catalog. At August's New York International Gift Fair, the company's Corine duvet set was a finalist in the Best New Product competition, Bed Category.

Blissliving's products target the modern consumer who has an interest in world cultures, travel and design, and the company's tag line is A Global Touch for the Modern Home. “Every product has a unique story or travel anecdote. During a recent journey to Provence I visited parfumeries and fragrance factories and was so inspired by the lavender fields that I wanted to re-create that feeling,” which Xu did, with the Amanda bedding line.

Xu is very involved in the creation of all Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blissliving Home collections. She works with Carmen DeSenne, vice president of product development and design, to capture trends and create each season's mood. “Once we have determined trend direction my design team starts conceptualizing individual collection components,” she said. “In the development phases we work very closely together until we are satisfied with the look and feel of every detail.”

She also oversees marketing and sales, while Wang focuses on the operations and financials. “Being involved in the product development process is very important to me and allows me to ensure our design vision is communicated through fragrances, textures, fabrics and design,” she said. Xu also serves as a cheerleader, mother figure and driving force behind an operation that is run by “an outstanding team that supports me on every level.”

In addition to her role as a designer and businesswoman, Xu is mother to two boys, ages 7 and 5. She also contributes a monthly column to 31 Home Textile Magazine, a prominent Chinese trade publication. “The focus is always on home decor, and in each column I introduce a new theme.” Xu also is a member of the U.S. China Business Council and participates in the Initiative for Global Development. Her business success, combined with her efforts for education and against global poverty, won her recognition earlier this year by the Asian Women in Business organization, which awarded her their 2007 Entrepreneurial Leadership Award.

And where does she go to find her own blissful moments? “Sometimes I create a little spa in my own bathroom,” she said. “I love taking a hot bath, while listening to my favorite music (Buddha Bar), and lighting the room with a dozen candles of my favorite Chesapeake Bay Candle fragrance, Bamboo Jasmine.”