A kitchen hobby built around the places people miss.

Homesick is an American home-fragrance brand built on a single idea: a candle that smells like the place you come from. The company says it was founded in 2016, and describes itself today as “a fragrance and lifestyle brand” whose goal is to help people “feel closer to the people, places and moments that matter most.”

Its origin story is a domestic one. In 2019 the company’s About page said the founders started hand-pouring candles in their kitchen as a hobby, making scents that reminded them of the people and places where they grew up; friends then asked for versions of their own home states, “and Homesick Candles was born.” The same page said the candles were “made with love in the USA,” with soy wax, custom fragrance oils and cotton wicks. The company has not named its founders on its current website, and this guide does not name them either.

The state candle is the brand’s core. By October 2019 the website’s menu was organised by States, Cities, Countries, Memories and College Towns, with a candle for each US state alongside cities such as Nashville and New Orleans, national parks such as Yosemite and Yellowstone, and occasions such as a first kiss, a new home or a birthday party. The name on each candle is the place or the moment itself.

The brand’s own copy still leans on that idea. Its website in October 2026 described the mission as pouring “your hyper-specific memories into dreamy location-inspired fragrances that take you back home,” and said the company harvests “an area’s local charm, food, landscape and personality” to make each candle smell of a certain place. Alongside States and Cities, the menu now groups candles under Moments, including weddings, memories and celebrations.

Asking locals, then licensing stories.

Homesick describes a research-led method. The company says it speaks “to anywhere from 30 to 100 people for every candle we develop,” visiting local areas before trying “hundreds of different scent combinations.” It says the range has grown to almost 200 products, “from every US state, to multiple cities and countries.”

Its account of the wax has changed over time. In November 2019 the company’s announcement of its Dunkin’ collection, as reported by the ABC television station ABC30, said each candle was hand-poured with a coconut wax blend; its website now says its candles are “poured in small batches with a natural soy wax blend,” with cotton wicks and essential oils. Both are the company’s own descriptions of its products at the time.

The range has widened beyond the jar candle. In 2019 the website already sold a mini version of some candles and a fragrance oil; by 2026 the shop was divided into candles, car fresheners, linen and room sprays, and accessories, with flameless sprays promoted for students heading back to school.

In November 2019, ABC30 reported, Homesick launched three limited-edition candles inspired by Dunkin’ products — Original Blend Coffee, Peppermint Mocha-Flavored Coffee and Old Fashioned Donuts — developed by Homesick’s “team of researchers and perfume chemists” with Dunkin’s culinary team, and packaged in bold prints in Dunkin’s pink and orange.

Licensed stories have since joined the places. In October 2026 the brand’s website listed collaborations including Harry Potter, FRIENDS, Seinfeld and Gilmore Girls, alongside car fresheners and linen and room sprays. The same menu also listed tie-ins with consumer brands, among them KFC, the fabric softener Snuggle and the soda brand OLIPOP, continuing the approach of the 2019 Dunkin’ collection.

Candles and home fragrance.

The seven brands in this group all make scented candles and home fragrance: Yankee Candle, NEOM, Homesick, Paddywax, Voluspa, NEST New York and LAFCO. Candle brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from founder-led companies that still pour under their original name to labels that now belong to much larger consumer-goods groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a supermarket aisle to a department-store counter.

A candle brand’s identity is usually carried less by the wax than by the vessel, the label and the name given to each scent, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the room where it started. A glass jar, a tin or a coloured tumbler often does the work a logo does elsewhere, and the names of the fragrances — places, seasons, memories — become part of the identity in their own right.

That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its candles are actually poured and its vessels made. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its products are made and how its packaging has changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From WIN Brands Group to K. Hall Studio.

Homesick did not stay a kitchen business. By November 2019 it had a parent company: ABC30’s report on the Dunkin’ launch quoted Taylor Sicard as “co-founder of Homesick’s parent company Win Brands Group.” In February 2021 the technology news site socaltech described WIN Brands Group as a holding company based in New York whose brands included Homesick, “a maker of scented candles,” the silicone-ring maker Qalo and the weighted-blanket brand Gravity.

The brand changed hands again in 2026. On 12 February 2026 K. Hall Studio acquired Homesick BVG, the parent company of the Homesick brand, from WIN Brands Group, according to the deal-tracking site PrivSource. K. Hall Studio has owned Homesick since then. K. Hall Studio describes itself as a Midwest-based maker of home fragrance and personal-care goods with its corporate office in St. Louis, Missouri; it says its original owner, Kelley Barr, launched K. Hall Designs as a local St. Louis collection in 1998, and that its brands now include K. Hall Designs, Simpatico, U.S. Apothecary and Barr-Co. It says it also runs a private-label development programme and two company-owned shops in St. Louis, and that all K. Hall Studio products are handcrafted in the USA, with candles made from a soy and vegetable wax blend.

For a design guide, Homesick shows how a candle brand can make the name on the jar do the work: a state, a city or a memory, stated plainly, with the scent built to match. Compare Otherland, another American candle brand, and Boy Smells. For this guide we use navy, cream and a warm gold with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Homesick’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.