Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Gomes.
Hi Allison, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Like many other people, our journey began quite literally on a whim. Early in 2022, my mother and I took part in a candle-making workshop on a cold, wintry night. We came back with one candle each, and didn’t think twice about it. A week later, though, when we lighted one of the candles, the fragrance the joy, the coziness of a handcrafted candle just hit us. We decided that we wanted to learn more about it.
Over the next year, I took many classes and workshops and earned certifications from KCCA (Korea Candle Craft Association) and CLAB (Craft & Design Lab), both based in South Korea. Because we were both busy individuals, my mother and I decided to start with hosting workshops of our own instead of focusing on retail production. After moving to the metro Atlanta area, the very same workshops helped us to connect with this big, bustling city, slowly helping us to acclimatize and make this our new home.
While I had been focused on candles, my mother began to apply her certification in Master Clinical Aromatherapy in making soap for the family—something which she further worked on during our stay in New Zealand. In February 2025, with the dissolution of USAID, my mother was furloughed from her job. Soapmaking was an outlet for her growing stress & frustrations with her job search, and the difficult job market. It only made sense to grow Atelier Aparajita from a candle-making studio to a candle & soap studio, and we’re so excited to have just opened up our small but mighty online store!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
If a journey didn’t have ups and downs, good and bad, then I think it would be difficult to appreciate the outcomes of it! I think we have been very fortunate in that we have always found people around us who have matched our enthusiasm and have wanted to see us grow.
But we have definitely had many curveballs thrown at us along the way: from having to move from New Zealand to Atlanta for my mother’s job (mere months after opening our candle-making studio there) to my father’s ill health in July 2025 which forced us to stop workshops altogether. I wouldn’t call it a smooth journey. As far as struggles go, though, I think I share a sentiment with many other small business owners when I say that social media is difficult! We’re still trying to master the content creation aspect of it all.
As you know, we’re big fans of Atelier Aparajita. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Named after my grandmother, Atelier Aparajita is a passion project worth sharing. Our WOC-owned candle & soap studio focuses on using natural ingredients to create new memories, whether you’re lighting a candle of ours or using a bar of soap. When senses are evoked, memories are made—and we keep this idea at the center of every product we design and create.
In addition, we try to harness the power of nature as best as we can: our candles are only made using natural waxes and are clean-burning and phthalate-free while our soaps are vegan, palm-free, fragranced only using essential oils and are labelled with full transparency. We want you to feel good about using what we make!
Currently we make our products in small batches from our home studio, and are available for wholesale orders as well as custom orders for corporate gifts, wedding favors etc.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Being true to ourselves and our beliefs has been a key factor of what we do: at first, choosing not to use paraffin wax in our candles was difficult, since it would often drive up the cost of what we would make and sell. It’s worrying, as a business owner at times, when you see that happening—you begin to question how much your products would be worth in the eyes of a customer, and if you can justify that retail price without having the backing of a corporation. But we knew we had a good product in our hands—and thankfully so did our customers!
Our soapmaking journey started off on a similar note: we knew we wanted our products to be vegan and natural, but also wanted to avoid palm oils for their obvious environmental and social impacts. That is another thing we hold very dearly—with me being an engineer by day, and my mother having worked most of life in non-profits, I think it’s imperative for us to be able to leave our planet in a better position than when we got here. Social and environmental impact guides so much of our ethics and what we do on a day-to-day basis that it makes sense for us to be able to carry these same sentiments into what we make—and if we feel good about making it, we feel that our customers will be able to feel just as good using it!
Pricing:
- Various soap bars (scented with essential oils) – $6.99 each
- Unscented body bar – $4.99
- Unscented facial bar – $3.99
- Seasonal candles (our dessert-based candles are often quite popular!) often change, but are around the $18-22 range
Contact Info:
- Website: https://atlr-aprj.myshopify.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/atlr.aprj
