In the DIY (do it yourself) art experience space, one business stands alone and represents for the culture.
Love & Make (2516 Times Blvd, Houston 77005) is that company. It’s the brainchild of two Black women, co-owners and sisters-in-law, Amara and Bukola Aigbedion.
And FYI, Love & Make is not just a place where patrons make candles, perfumes, soaps and more, they actually learn the science behind the process. This added dimension makes for a unique and memorable experience.
Founding Love & Make
The pair started their Love & Make journey as a pop-up venture in Rice Village that did so well, they were requested stay for an additional month multiple times. They eventually chose to secure a permanent space there, and the rest is history.
But Amara traces Love & Make’s beginnings even further back.
“I learned candle making in college after a friend of mine mentioned that she went on a date and her boyfriend made her a candle,” Amara shared with the Defender, about that early 2000s experience. “I didn’t know people could make candles back then. Candle-making wasn’t as popular as it is now. So, I started researching. This was before YouTube and before a lot of websites and blogs on the topic.”
Through getting out and learning from a lot of trial and error, Amara found her own creative lane and started making candles for family and friends’ birthdays. She then held a small candle-making get-together with friends. Around 2017 she approached Bukola with the idea for pop-ups.
The pair did several, but the Rice Village pop-up “popped” so much that they took their temporary experiences to the next level.
And patrons are loving it.
“I really enjoyed how hands-on and informative the class was,” said Amari Terasai Harris, a Love & Make repeat customer. “The staff was really great and we got pretty detailed insight into the process [of making perfumes and soaps], why each step was important, and what we could expect from our creations.
“I also enjoyed that the classes were conducive to creating conversation with those you came with as well as others that were at your table.”
Creating and learning
Love & Make not only teaches customers how to make handmade crafts like candles, perfume, soap, bath bombs and more, the innovative business creates community and team-building experiences while going hard to equip participants with the STEM knowledge behind their projects.
That’s because Amara is a mechanical engineer by trade, while Bukola is a pharmacist. The two met while in college at the University of Houston, and their friendship expanded to a thriving DIY business.
“At Love & Make, we’re all about creating an experience for our customers,” said Bukola. “We know that shared experiences are what creates great memories.”
The pair traveled to France to learn more about the process of creating perfumes before offering their perfume-making workshop.
“We want you to come in and have fun, but we also want you to understand everything that goes into making [perfumes],” added Bukola.
For Amara, Love & Make meshed both sides of her genius.
“I realized that creating things is just one my passions, not just being an engineer, but exploring both sides of the brain, the science and math side, and also the creative side, using your hands,” said Amara, who is also passionate about gifting people hand-made objects.
Amara describes herself as creative yet not artistic. So, the Love & Make model, which is heavy on teaching customers the step-by-step procedures for making their crafts, fits her to a tea.
Though Bukola was not a business major, Amara says her business partner possesses an innate business inclination and thrives on negotiations, creating experiences for people, and events/party planning.
“So, we connected up and it’s been a perfect match, us being business partners,” added Amara.
What excites Amara most about Love & Make are the opportunities it affords groups for team building and individuals for self-care or to enjoy a much-needed escape.
Offerings
And with both owners having serious STEM backgrounds, learning is at the forefront of all three ways they bring their customers together – in studio, with public and private workshops; offsite events where they bring their services to business offices, birthday parties, business collaborator spaces, and more; and virtual events.
“In 2020 during the pandemic, we learned how to bring our experience online and basically figure out how to put all of those products into a kit that we can ship out all over the world. And we bring remote teams together,” said Amara, who still has a 9-to-5 as an innovation manager, working with electrical engineers in the renewable energies arena.
When asked about what separates Love & Make from its DIY competition, Amara said she encourages potential customers to go to those other spaces, “but they should come to us first.”
“We are one of the first DIY spaces in Houston. We started back in 2018, and we really set the tone for the community in terms of wanting to give back. We not only do our workshops, but we also give back to the community. We do a lot of sponsorships. So, a lot of the funding that comes in, we actually give back to the community in that sense.
“As far as the experience you’ll have in our workshops, it’s super engaging. Like I said, we’re all about the knowledge,” added Amara, words to which Harris can attest.
“Love & Make offers such a wide variety of items that you can create with high-quality ingredients, all of which I have done and would highly recommend. It is also a big plus, at least for me, that the business is Black-woman-owned and so professionally run,” shared Harris.
Social Media
IG: love_and_make
TikTok: Love and Make
Website: www.loveandmake.com
