Brazilian babe and mixologist of liquid wax Beatrice "Bia" Antunes solidifies her artisan candle-making company to bring intensely sensual scents to light up your pad. Upon infusing vegan ingredients, pure essential oils and soy wax, Antunes intently hand-pours each molten mixture into amber glass jars in her Rosemary District studio. “I make them alone with music that calms, or is fun, something that always has a positive vibration,” she says. “I try to transfer those positive emotions to my candles when I pour.” And once match meets wick, Bia’s all-natural blends create a clean, even and slow burn for many a evenings spent horizontal in a tub or on a couch. “Our olfactory sense is very powerful. It transports us in space and time. It brings back memories. It makes us smile.”
Bia Candle Co. uncapped its inaugural scent—Jasmine Magnolia, an herbaceous floral aroma made with freesia, ylang-ylang and gardenia—before releasing the ethereal Amber Santal scent, a creamy, woodsy whiff made with vanilla bean orchid and sandalwood. Soon after, came Wash Away My Sins, a purifying wave of Gulf Coast elements like sea salt, white wood and ozone (the "clean" smell, in particular, after a heavy thunderstorm). Newly launched 2020 scents with cheeky innuendos for names include Honeydew Me, a fruity, fresh yet sweet combination of honeydew melon, watermelon, sparkling mineral water and lady apple peel, as well as Smokin’ Cowboy, an aromatic alchemy of Tuscan leather, blue iris, violet, cedar and sandalwood. “This cowboy will blow your mind,” Antunes quips. Gentlemen, take note.
To source these telluric fragrances of the earth, Antunes often loses herself in Sarasota’s diverse landscapes—from the Keys and the Bay, to a horse barn east of Interstate and out to Myakka. “I love walking on a beach or through a field of grass. I’m always smelling and noticing nature’s given scents—the sand and salt of Sarasota, trying to find the bush of midnight jasmine when I stroll at night with my pup Duey or when my mare (Brazilian sport horse) Fantastique lets me breathe in the smell of her neck.” Kindling this month, Antunes will debut her first “high“ fashion scent, Lets Get Lit, an herbal, sticky-fresh cannabis flower scent with some smoky undertones.
