Upsensed

Leather + Tabac. The combination of dreams. Smooth leather meets grandad’s pipe to***co. There’s just a hint of honey drizzle in the air…all grounded by a base of warm cherrywood.

This fragrance was inspired by a love of old books, quiet studies with a little bit of dust, and core memory nostalgia.

Follow along as the fragrances drop. 9/14.

Two decades of paying attention to rooms before anything else in them.

The stage taught it first: light, pacing, and the particular silence before something happens. Then a hospital corridor at 3am asks for the same instinct, just heavier: read the room, steady it, adjust before anyone has to ask.

Candles were never a departure from that. Same tools - scent, light, timing, but pointed toward rest instead of rescue.

Upsensed carries that instinct forward. 5% of every purchase goes toward mental health support. The same attention still finding somewhere to go.

Vanilla bean, dark and split. Tonka pooled beside it like sediment. Cedarwood rising through fog, green and holding moisture in its needles.

Forêt de Vanille sits at the place where warmth meets wild. It opens with a creamy vanilla base grounded by tonka’s bitter hush, then lifted into something colder…. forested. Not dessert or candy, but a vanilla that remembers it grew in shade.

Hand-poured in Houston. Luxury set to unfold.

The Core Collection arrives September 7.

Hi, new friends! I'm Mikayla. 👋
Since so many of you found your way here recently, felt like time for a proper reintroduction.

I'm a labor & delivery nurse. Master's degree in nursing, twenty-plus years of theatre kid in my bones, and a scent memory that never quits.
At home, I'm outnumbered: boy mom of two, plus Coco, our resident Chief Sniffing Officer, who takes her candle-testing duties very seriously.

Candle-making started as the thing that helped me come down after long shifts. Melting wax at midnight, chasing a scent that felt like exhaling. That quiet practice became Upsensed; small-batch, nurse-founded, and built on the same instinct I bring to a labor room: pay attention to what actually soothes a nervous system, and don't cut corners on what goes into it.

That's me! Grateful you're here for this next chapter. 🕯️

When I first announced Upsensed, our launch date felt set in stone.

What was supposed to be a brand launch suddenly became packing boxes, building a new home, designing a new studio, and trying to juggle all of that while still working as a nurse and handcrafting every product behind the scenes.

So instead of forcing a timeline that no longer serves us, I’m choosing something that aligns with why I started Upsensed in the first place: protecting my peace.

I’d rather launch a little later and give you an experience I’m truly proud of than rush something I’ve poured my heart into.

The good news? The new studio is going to be everything I’ve dreamed of, and I can’t wait to bring you along for the process. There will be plenty of behind-the-scenes, sneak peeks, and probably a few chaotic moving updates too. 😂

Thank you for sticking with me, cheering me on, and giving this little dream room to grow. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

The countdown isn’t over, it’s just taking a scenic route. 🤍