Our Story - Nuestra Historia

Our Story · Nuestra Historia 

Roots

Home Essence Collection is a Cuban-American house of fragrance — built by hand, rooted in memory, and made for the home you're building today.

I was forty when everything I thought I had settled started asking new questions. Not a breakdown — more like a reckoning. Suddenly I was looking at my life with different eyes: what I had built, what I hadn't dared to try, how much time was actually left to do the things I kept postponing. It was uncomfortable and it was honest, and underneath it there was something I couldn't ignore anymore: a candle I had made years ago, almost by accident, that had never stopped asking to become something more.

I had a happy childhood, surrounded by my grandparents — and each one left something in me that I still carry: Niña's garden in Bainoa, Cusa teaching me that a woman can be a mother and still be free, and my father Leonel's quiet strength. I missed each of them terribly as I lost them, one by one. Losing my father broke something in me that never fully closed.

I was also lucky enough to have my great-grandmother, Cuca, well into my adult life. She lived to ninety-three, long enough to meet my own children. She had her own ylang - ylang tree, and from it she made her own cologne whit her hands - lond before i knew that gesture would one day become part of this brand. She was the one first showed me that scent could be something you make yoursalef, not something you buy.

Raíces       

Tenía cuarenta años cuando todo lo que creía tener resuelto empezó a plantearme nuevas interrogantes. No fue una crisis, sino más bien un momento de introspección profunda. De repente, veía mi vida con otros ojos: lo que había construido, aquello que no me había atrevido a intentar y cuánto tiempo me quedaba realmente para hacer las cosas que seguía postergando. Fue una experiencia incómoda pero honesta, y en el fondo había algo que ya no podía ignorar: una vela que había creado años atrás, casi por casualidad, y que siempre había reclamado convertirse en algo más.

Tuve una infancia feliz. Conté con mis cuatro abuelos, y cada uno dejó en mí una huella que aún conservo: el jardín de Niña en Bainoa, las enseñanzas de Cusa sobre cómo una mujer puede ser madre y seguir siendo libre, y la fortaleza serena de mi padre, Leonel. Los extrañé profundamente a medida que los fui perdiendo, uno a uno. La muerte de mi padre rompió algo en mi interior que nunca terminó de sanar del todo.

También tuve la fortuna de contar con mi bisabuela durante gran parte de mi vida adulta. Vivió hasta los noventa y tres años, tiempo suficiente para conocer a mis propios hijos.Ella tenia su propio arbol de ylang - ylang, y con el , elaboraba su propia colonia . Mucho antes que yo supiera que ese gesto se convertiria un dia en parte de esta marca. Fue ella quien primero me mostro que un aroma podia ser algo que una misma crea, no algo que se compra.

CAPÍTULO II

The Hardest Decision

The hardest decision of my life came at twenty-three: leaving Cuba, leaving my family behind, with a backpack full of memories and a broken heart, facing the unknown. If I'm honest with myself today, it was never only about me. It was, more than anything, about helping the family I was leaving behind on the island.

My roots didn't disappear that day — they blurred, little by little, under new places, new routines, new noise. What brought them back into focus wasn't nostalgia. It was the people who stayed close: family who reminded me who I was, and a city — Hialeah, the most Cuban city in the United States — that let me build a life without losing myself. Twenty years later, I'm still here.

La Decisión Más Difícil

La decisión más difícil de mi vida llegó a los veintitrés años: dejar Cuba, dejar a mi familia atrás, con una mochila llena de recuerdos y el corazón roto, enfrentando lo desconocido. Si soy honesta hoy, nunca fue solo sobre mí. Fue, más que nada, sobre ayudar a la familia que dejaba en la isla.

Mis raíces no desaparecieron ese día — se fueron desdibujando, poco a poco, bajo lugares nuevos, rutinas nuevas, ruido nuevo. Lo que las trajo de vuelta no fue la nostalgia. Fue la gente que se mantuvo cerca: familia que me recordaba quién era, y una ciudad — Hialeah, la más cubana de Estados Unidos — que me dejó construir una vida sin perderme a mí misma. Veinte años después, sigo aquí.

CAPÍTULO III

Never Alone

But I was never alone in any of it. My mother has always been my engine. My sister has been my mirror. My husband Alberto has held me up on the days I didn't think I could keep going. And my children — they're the reason I want to leave something behind, something that means more than just a fragrance on a shelf.

I was about sixteen, and my little sister was six or seven. My mother was going to come home late, past six, when the bodega closed — and without her, we had no way to buy that day's bread. So I did what I could: I toasted wheat my father kept for the animals, ground it in an old Russian blender, and mixed it with sugar. Gofio, we called it. My father had a stack of old yellowed paper, and I rolled it into little cones, filled them with the gofio, and sent my sister around the block to sell it — one Cuban peso a cone — with one condition: when our parents came home, no one could ask about it. Selling things wasn't something our family did; we'd been taught it was beneath us. But that day, I chose to build a small business that lasted exactly one day, so my sister and I could eat.

Years later, when I started making candles, my sister was my first salesperson. She sold them at her job, told everyone about them — and she still does today.

And then there were my friends — the ones who took a chance on me before I had any reason to believe in myself. They bought my very first candles, back when I didn't yet know what I was doing. Those candles weren't the best I've ever made. But they carried something no candle since has had in quite the same way — they were made in that raw, uncertain moment when I was just starting to believe I could. My friends didn't just buy a candle. They gave me permission to keep going.

I think that's true for all of us, if we're honest: no one gets anywhere alone. Behind every person building something — a business, a family, a life worth having — there's a circle of people who believed in them first. This brand is, at its core, for them.

Those Who Opened the First Door

When no one knew who I was yet, some people opened doors for me anyway.

My mother-in-law opened her own circle without me ever asking — the adult daycare she attended became one of my strongest business relationships to this day. A mother-in-law's faith, turned into a real client.

Yeyo — that's what I call Eduardo, my mother's husband, who is so much more than that to me: he's like a grandfather to my children — brought me, without even trying, the woman who is today my best individual client. His quiet support opened a door that's still bearing fruit.

I think of them both often. Behind every candle sold, there's usually someone who opened a door first.

That's why I pour every Home Essence fragrance by hand, right here in Hialeah. Not to relive the past, but to hand you something that smells like your people, your story, your peace — whoever it is that has carried you.

Choose your scent. Light it. Let your home tell your story — and theirs, too.

Los Que Abrieron la Primera Puerta

Cuando todavía nadie me conocía, algunas personas me abrieron puertas de todos modos.

Mi suegra abrió su propio círculo sin que yo se lo pidiera — el daycare de adultos al que ella iba se convirtió en una de mis relaciones comerciales más sólidas hasta hoy. La fe de una suegra, convertida en una clienta real.

Yeyo — así le digo a Eduardo, el esposo de mi mamá, que es mucho más que eso para mí: es como un abuelo para mis hijos — me trajo, sin siquiera intentarlo, a la mujer que hoy es mi mejor clienta individual. Su apoyo silencioso abrió una puerta que todavía sigue dando frutos.

Pienso en los dos con frecuencia. Detrás de cada vela vendida, casi siempre hay alguien que abrió una puerta primero.

Por eso vierto cada fragancia de Home Essence a mano, aquí mismo en Hialeah. No para revivir el pasado, sino para entregarte algo que huela a tu gente, a tu historia, a tu paz — a quien sea que te haya sostenido a ti.

Elige tu aroma. Enciéndelo. Deja que tu casa cuente tu historia — y la de ellos también.