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Welcome to The Quality Makers, an interview series highlighting pioneers in the direct-to-consumer space. Join us as we get an inside look at the world of digital shopping through the eyes of the individuals shaping it…
Born in San Francisco, raised in Hawaii and now based in New York City, Carol Han Pyle launched Nette in 2020. Her intention was to create a clean-burning, sustainable, and super chic candle that would light the way to a new standard for the industry. Eventually, the brand added other fragrances into the mix, including their exquisite eau de parfums scientifically proven to boost confidence and mindfulness. Carol found her dream partners: a factory who sourced a smooth, yummy, non-toxic coconut-soy wax, artisan glass blowers who make their glass vessels by hand, ceramicists who throw and glaze their ceramics in the most gorgeous colors, and the best fragrance houses and perfumers in the market. Read below to learn more about the treasures you’ll never want to throw out—one-of-a-kind scents that’ll become main characters in your cherished daily routines.
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What brought you to candles?
My mom actually had a candle store on the water in Sausalito when I was growing up. For the first nine years of my life, my core childhood memories took place in that candle store, because my mom brought me to work with her everyday before I started going to school. I became immersed in this beautiful, fragrant environment where she would hand dip and hand carve these really colorful pillars. I always say that my love for candles and fragrance started in that candle shop.
What led you to start the brand Nette?
There was this early background of my childhood filled with candles and fragrances that has always stuck with me. Growing up in San Francisco, I had this idyllic childhood, where almost everything was uncomplicated. It was a really joyful time. But after that my parents got divorced, which is why my mom and I moved to Hawaii, and they sold the candle business. My dad stayed in San Francisco, and we ultimately became estranged, so things got harder and more complicated. My mom was suddenly a single mom, we had to start over, she was working a lot, and I was kind of on my own during that time period. Things eventually smoothed out but I always felt that there was this very distinct marker between before and after. I’ve always related my most simple, joyful and blissful memories and emotions to candles and fragrances because that was such a core part of my life in San Francisco pre divorce. To me, fragrance brings joy, and I wanted to share that with others.
After college, I ended up at Elle Magazine, where I stayed for 4 years, first in their fashion department and then I moved over to elle.com and became their fashion and beauty marketing editor. I covered a lot of brands that I ended up falling in love with, and most of them needed help in 2010 when social media became a big part of their marketing. I ended up leaving my job, and I started my own social media agency where I was creating content for brands, and I’m still running that agency to this day. Through that experience, I felt even more that brands have this power to really cultivate their own communities and drive the cultural conversation in such transformative ways. When the pandemic hit, I finally had the opportunity to take this idea of a fragrance brand and really bring it to life.
We started off with candles, and that was really an homage to my mom. Making candles felt like coming home. It was familiar and dear to me, it never felt scary. But it was still a huge learning curve because I had never produced a candle before. I was really building the plane as I was flying it and it took me about 2 years to get the candles to where I wanted them to be. It wasn't until the end of 2022 where I felt like the candles were good to go, and then I was able to devote more attention to this fine fragrance category I had also been developing for some time.
How did the name Nette come about?
The name is a French word that loosely translates to elegant, impeccable and clean, which are three attributes that I always go back to whenever I'm thinking about the brand. My goal is always to make sure we do things in a really elegant manner. The brand identity is not too loud, not too maximalist. We strive to be as clean as possible in all of the formulas that we create. A lot of integrity comes from being impeccable – when your words, actions and thoughts are aligned. Being impeccable is always a good reminder for me; it encompasses all we strive to be.
Tell me about the products you offer and the creation process behind them.
We work with the best fragrance houses and some of the most exciting, top perfumers in the world today. I'm so proud of the perfumers and the partnerships that we've grown and built. We bring the vision and then they translate it, and you have to be a true artist to master that. The work that they do in bringing our initial vision to life is just astounding to me, every single time.
We just launched our first new perfume since the category launch that we did last year with Sephora, and we've been working on it for over a year. If you’ve ever seen the 90s movie Ghost, you might remember the scene where Carl goes to Demi Moore's apartment after Patrick Swayze has died, and he hands her a paper bag of Japanese pears. I remember the moment I watched that, thinking: what does that scene smell like? You have this paper bag, filled with these juicy Japanese pears, in downtown New York City, in this soaring loft in the 90s, where this beautiful young sculptor who has just lost the love of her life. That moment became the initial inspiration for what is now the new perfume called Pear Jam. I brought this whole idea to the perfume house, they looked at me like I’m crazy, but then they translated it and turned it into something beautiful.
Tell me more about the idea of (self)care in relation to candles and fragrances.
I believe that scent is one of the most powerful ways to feel grounded. There's so much science around how deeply smell can affect us in terms of our emotions and memories. For so much of my later childhood, especially after moving to Hawaii, I was craving going back to that candle store, and there were certain scents that would transport me back. I love that scent has the power to bring you to a certain moment or period in your life that you don’t want to let go of. It allows you to always remember.
Besides the nostalgia, fragrances can really alter your brainwaves. All of our perfumes are scientifically proven to boost certain emotions. The first collection we did, which features five different fragrances, focused on boosting feelings of confidence and mindfulness. Especially as a woman in this world, it's so important to have a strong sense of confidence, that ‘safety in your own skin’ feeling. To know who you are and to stand on your own. Our newest fragrance is a happy one, scientifically proven and certified to boost feelings of well being and positivity.
What differentiates you from other brands in the industry?
Our launch fragrances come from a very raw place. When creating them, I’m not thinking about the marketing of it all, or even whether or not customers are going to like it. We're not a huge corporation that has to do tons of consumer testing until it's guaranteed that as many people as possible, across the US, will be satisfied. When people create with that in mind, the fragrances tend to become very simplified because the audience needs to immediately understand the focus of the scent. But for us, our fragrances are layered, super complex, really pure, and filled with the best ingredients. Our brand’s focus on evoking emotions with actual scientific proof backing that statement is definitely our biggest point of differentiation. We also have a unique poem that comes with every scent, which is meant to really induce the emotion of that fragrance.
Do you have any fun things in mind for the future & growth of Nette?
Definitely! We want to roll out several different categories, starting with personal care. I just love the idea of having Nette in different touch points of a person's life and home. If I can be in someone's powder room with a really beautiful hand lotion, that would make me really happy. I also love the hospitality industry, and I see more of Nette in various luxury hotel spaces in our future. If we can strike up a partnership with a really beautiful luxury hotel group that suits our brand, that would be a great opportunity.
