This month we are featuring local artisans and crafters in the community and I sat down with Elysia of Naughty Faery Creations to learn about her products.

Elysia has over 20 years of knowledge of the craft. Though she specializes in more “Traditional Craft”, she also has a background in Wicca as her original starting roots. She started Naughty Faery Creations after many people tried to give her money for her jewelry creations, which was the gateway to, as some may know, many other things. She has been creating various items like her incense, candles, Faery Crowns & Wreaths, Wings, Fans, costumes, since 2002. For the past 6 years she has aligned herself with The Green Man Store in North Hollywood to exclusively sell her wares & can be found a few times a week behind the counter helping others find a little bit of amazingly smelling light at the end of their tunnel.

HG: So tell me about how you started making your incense. How did that come about?

NF: I like to tinker with things a lot and I started making jewelry and other one of a kind pieces. I had a lot of fun with it, but I got tired of constantly having to be in production and I wanted something that would last a bit longer. I wanted to be able to have something that I could easily carry back stock.

HG: Tell me the backstory behind creating some of the scents you now have.

NF: I’m guided a lot from spirit. The recipes came to me as is and I went with it. Some of the scents like Success with formulated because my boss wanted something specific for work. Blissful sleep which is very popular scent came about because of my sister had a lot of trouble sleeping so I said, “Well, why don’t we try this out and see if it works?” Some of the others came about because I wanted to capture and evoke an experience like faery forest which is capturing what its like to walk in a forest and have the sun coming through the trees and guiding you.

HG: How do you come up with recipes? How does your background in perfumery and magical herbs guide you?

NF: For me scent is a memory so I started with scents that reminded me of things. Then I used my knowledge of magical herbs to add intentions, but they didn’t always work scent wise. The lady I worked with in perfumery was popular because her blends told a story and that’s when I had my Ah ha moment and realized of course scent can tell a story and how would you go about doing that. So my blends tip a hat to that idea. They also came about because I sometimes hated the way incense would smell and I thought why can’t magic smell good? So I worked on alternatives and quite frankly I think they’re way better (laughing).

HG: What inspires you?

NF: (laughing) I wish I could tell you sometimes really. Its sometimes like a little worm that goes hey your making this now and I go oh crap ok fine I will. Other times it comes in the moment. I will be obsessed with a particular scent or a fragrance will enter my nose and I start to ask myself where its coming from and it starts to unfold that way. I guess you could say my process is pretty organic.

HG: What is it like watching your product grow from such a small beginning to now almost having a rabid following?

NF: (laughing) Honestly my incense is kind of like a caged monster. It has its own agenda and it wants to move a lot quicker than I am ready for sometimes. So I tend to hold things back and that’s totally on me. It all started with an idea and a store and people just started gravitating towards it then more people then I started selling out. At one point I had three different stores carrying my incense at the same time.

HG: OK so the other big question is the name. How did you come up with such an iconic moniker?

NF: (laughing) Its actually a really funny story about how it came about. At first I wanted to come up with a name that worked, but didn’t box me into a particular niche. So I had this faery ring I wore on my thumb and I loved it. I used to think she was very demure but upon closer inspection, I discovered she was a little more naughty… and I said, oh this is a naughty faery ring; got it. I’m running through the names and thinking about it and I walk into the bathroom and ask myself ok, what am I going to call this? And right as I say that I prick my skin and bleed onto the ring. That’s when it clicked and said oh ok, so that’s what we’re going with ok. And that’s how it came to be…

Interview by Hovik

Elysia will be teaching a Beginning Intuitive Tarot series January 8th at The Green Man Store