This friday, I will show you the work of JOYA STUDIO, they make a really nice work with their products, candles and bar soaps, but designing everything, scent, housing and packaging, which is very nice to see.

How did you come up with the idea of this kind of work?

Thank you. It began as a design project and became a fascination with fragrance and a challenge to source the world’s best raw materials.

Was it hard when you begun it?

Yes, it is a very competitive industry. Fortunately, a number of my friends are designers, and my parents have experience in manufacturing—this has been invaluable.

How do you guide yourself to choose the scent for a specific client? I admit that I have no clue about this, because for me it seems a very difficult theme, because it is related to the sense of smell, and that it is so subjective….isn’t it?

For specific or private clients, we dive deep into the story they want to tell, research ingredients and look to add our own touch. For our own collections, we make what we want. We pay attention to our customers’ wants but are not preoccupied with trends.

What about packaging? I see that your packaging are each time more sophisticated, handcrafted work with modern ingredients as “In Girum” the collaboration between Joya and Oliver Ruuger.

Thank you one more time. Yes, we pay a lot of attention to secondary and outer packaging. The products we create are indulgences, so the experience needs to be complete. The collaboration with Oliver is a beautiful study in simplicity: His engraved saddle leather creation fits around the candle perfectly and is painstakingly molded, dyed, waxed, polished and finished by hand; the lid doubles as the base; there is no wasteful paper packaging.

And about housing, you use mostly glass, but in some products, like in FvsS series, you fabricate your moulds and fabricate one by one your ceramic piece. Why this material? Do you try to express something different through this material?

Porcelain is our ideal material. It is non-porous, so neither perfume, diffuser oil, or scented wax will seep or leak through. The texture of unglazed porcelain is personal, intimate, perfect. Also, candles in uncolored porcelain seem to glow.

Being crafted work; do you make a limited number of units of each series?

It depends. We produce some hyper limited series and other larger quantities.

Which is the reason why you base your work in items crafted if you can make a big production in an industry?

We create hundreds of thousands of products per year in our studio.

How long it takes to develop a new project, since the beginning until it is ready to be sold?

Very much depends on the project. Some we can conceive of and execute in weeks. Others have been in development for years.

Which ones are your sources of inspiration?

Words, music, family, architecture, the city, and the country.

Which would be an ideal project to be developed?

Scented horror film.

What is beauty for you?

I love details and the beauty in small things. As they say, “Sands make the mountain…”