LGBTQIA+ Candles: How My Identity Shapes RANNI

There are a lot of ways to describe RANNI.

A candle brand.

A South Asian brand.

An LGBTQIA+ owned brand.

A small business.

A home fragrance brand.

But none of those descriptions really explain what RANNI feels like to me.

Because RANNI is also a glimpse into my brain.

It is South Asian heritage draped in glitter. Tradition with a whisper of sass. Darkness and light. Stillness and exuberance. Complexity and simplicity. Sacred and a little bit unhinged.

And yes, a lot of that comes from being both South Asian and queer.

RANNI is South Asian and LGBTQIA+ owned

My South Asian heritage and my queer identity are both fundamental parts of who I am, so naturally they're going to show up in what I create.

I don't experience those parts of myself as two completely separate identities that need to be carefully placed into different boxes.

They overlap.

They influence each other.

They coexist.

That's a big part of what RANNI is about.

There is a line in my brand story that I keep coming back to:

Culture and queerness do not compete. They coexist.

That idea is probably the simplest explanation for why RANNI looks and feels the way it does.

My identity influences the way I create

Being South Asian and queer doesn't mean every RANNI candle has to be explicitly about either identity.

It's more subtle than that.

It influences my taste.

My references.

My sense of humor.

The things I find beautiful.

The things I find interesting.

The stories I want to tell.

The way I think about fragrance.

And the way I want someone to feel when they enter the world of RANNI.

Those influences can show up in a scent without the scent itself needing a label that says "South Asian" or "LGBTQIA+."

Sometimes the connection is obvious.

Sometimes it's buried underneath the surface.

And sometimes I just know something feels very RANNI.

It shows up in my scents

Fragrance is probably one of the most obvious places where my background influences RANNI.

South Asian culture is full of incredibly rich sensory references.

Tea.

Cardamom.

Saffron.

Rose.

Jasmine.

Fruit.

Spices.

Flowers.

Woods.

Food.

These aren't just ingredients to me. They're connected to memories, places, people, traditions, and experiences.

But I don't want to simply recreate those things literally.

I like taking something familiar and turning it into something unexpected.

That's where the alchemy comes in.

A familiar ingredient can become something darker, moodier, brighter, stranger, or more modern depending on what I put around it.

That's how I think about South Asian inspired fragrance.

And being queer influences that process too because I'm naturally drawn to contrast, exaggeration, playfulness, and the unexpected.

I don't want everything to make perfect sense.

Sometimes I want it to make you curious.

It shows up in the visual identity

RANNI doesn't look the way it does by accident.

The aesthetic is influenced by the same duality that sits at the center of the brand.

Dark and light.

Soft and dramatic.

Traditional and modern.

Minimal and maximal.

Pretty and a little provocative.

My South Asian upbringing gave me a visual language full of color, ornament, texture, ceremony, beauty, and tradition.

My gay experience gave me another language: camp, performance, glamour, humor, exaggeration, and the freedom to make something a little more fabulous than it needs to be.

Put those things together and you get RANNI.

Or at least the version of RANNI that exists in my head.

It shows up in my marketing

I don't think marketing has to feel like marketing.

At least, I don't want mine to.

The way I communicate RANNI is influenced by my personality, my sense of humor, pop culture, visual storytelling, and the things that make me laugh.

Sometimes that means being dramatic.

Sometimes it means being ridiculous.

Sometimes it means referencing something that only a certain group of people will immediately understand.

And sometimes it means making a candle ad that feels more like a tiny piece of culture than an advertisement.

That's intentional.

I want RANNI to feel like a person has made it.

Because a person has.

It shows up in the website

Even the RANNI website is meant to feel like entering my world rather than walking into a generic candle store.

That's part of why I call it My House.

The House isn't supposed to be perfect.

It's supposed to have personality.

It's supposed to have contrast.

It's supposed to feel like there is an actual person behind it.

The same ideas that influence my scents and visual identity influence the website too.

I want it to feel editorial and cinematic, but also playful.

A little mysterious.

A little dramatic.

A little unexpected.

Basically, somewhere between a fragrance house and my own slightly unhinged brain.

It shows up in the way I think about beauty

Growing up South Asian and being gay have both shaped my relationship with beauty.

There can be a lot of complexity in growing up with traditions, expectations, culture, family, and your own sense of identity.

For me, RANNI became a place where those things didn't have to fight each other.

I could take something traditional and make it feel modern.

I could take something soft and make it powerful.

I could take something dark and make it beautiful.

I could be sentimental and irreverent at the same time.

That tension is one of the things I love most about RANNI.

RANNI is rooted in duality

I've always been fascinated by opposites.

Darkness and light.

Stillness and exuberance.

Complexity and simplicity.

Sacred and unhinged.

That's why the idea of alchemy feels so connected to RANNI.

Alchemy is transformation.

Taking one thing and turning it into another.

And honestly, that's how I think about my own life too.

I have a habit of burning my life to ashes every few years and beginning again.

Reinventing.

Rebuilding.

Rising into a Renaissance. (Cue Beyoncé, obviously.)

So what better medium than flame?

What better ritual than lighting it up?

Creating a space where people can coexist

RANNI isn't just about making candles.

It's about creating a safe space.

I want people to be able to see themselves somewhere in this brand, whether that's through the culture, the humor, the aesthetic, the queerness, the gayness, the fragrance, or simply the feeling of being welcomed in.

My South Asian heritage doesn't have to compete with my identity.

Softness doesn't have to compete with power.

Tradition doesn't have to compete with reinvention.

You don't have to choose one version of yourself and leave the rest at the door.

There is always a seat for you here.

And if there isn't, I'll build a bigger table.

Aka, I'll order one online and have someone from Taskrabbit assemble it.

Why being LGBTQIA+ owned matters to me

Being LGBTQIA+ owned isn't just a marketing descriptor I put on the website.

It's part of the perspective behind the brand.

It means RANNI exists because I wanted to build something that reflected me rather than asking myself to fit into someone else's idea of what a brand should look like.

It means I get to decide what the house feels like.

What it sounds like.

What it smells like.

What it says.

Who it welcomes.

And what it stands for.

That's a pretty special thing to get to do.

Goods for good

Most importantly, I want RANNI to pay something forward.

A portion of every sale goes toward supporting organizations that help people live safely and authentically, with the resources and community they deserve.

Because creating a beautiful product means more to me when it can also contribute to something beyond itself. When you light a RANNI candle, you are helping someone stand in their own light too.

I want RANNI to be a business, but more importantly, I want it to be a community.

This is My House

RANNI is South Asian.

RANNI is LGBTQIA+ owned.

RANNI is rooted in duality, alchemy, and transformation.

But more than anything, RANNI is me.

It's the result of all the things I've experienced, loved, questioned, rejected, reclaimed, and turned into something new.

My heritage influences the fragrance.

My queerness influences the perspective.

My personality influences the voice.

And all of it comes together in the world I'm building.

That's what I want RANNI to be.

A little bit of culture.

A little bit of camp.

A little bit of darkness.

A lot of light.

And a place where all of those things can exist at the same table.

Come into My House, explore my candles, and find a little light that feels like you.