By Jennifer Tseng
Pictures courtesy of Mei Xu
Smell is the most elusive of our senses—often overlooked, yet the first to awaken, and functional even before we are born. As we grow, it weaves itself into our memory, in the warm aroma of baking bread and the earthy scent of rain meeting soil. A single familiar note can soothe the body and mind, carrying us back to life’s simplest joys.
Blueme, a company founded by Mei Xu, captures this magic perfectly in its candles and diffusers.
“Most people think of fragrance as decoration, something that makes a room smell nice. Blueme begins from a completely different place,” Xu told Elite in an interview.
“We develop science-formulated fragrances mapped to the daily rhythm of the human nervous system. Each scent in our collection is designed to support a specific emotional and physiological state.”
Where Dreams Begin Anew
While she has achieved remarkable success today, candle-making was once the furthest thing from Xu’s mind. Ambitious and academically gifted as a young girl growing up in China, she was accepted into a prestigious English-immersive school at the age of 12. While there, she envisioned a clear path toward becoming a diplomat.
That path shifted in the wake of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June 1989, the year she graduated from college. After weeks of pro-democracy protests in Beijing, the Chinese military moved in with force, bringing the movement to a violent end.
As Xu recounted in her 2021 book Burn: How Grit, Innovation, and a Dash of Luck Ignited a Multi-Million Dollar Success Story, graduates were dispersed across the country to prevent further unrest. With international sanctions leading to embassy closures, her diplomatic aspirations were abruptly put on hold. Xu was instead assigned to a mineral export warehouse, where she logged truck arrivals each day.
Unwilling to settle for such a life, Xu moved to the United States in 1991. Alone in New York and disillusioned by a lackluster job, she found solace wandering through Bloomingdale’s. There, she noticed a striking contrast between bold, fashion-forward clothing and a home goods section that felt drab and dated. Within that gap, she saw possibility.
“Surely, I thought, there must be a way to bring the modern and fresh style of American fashion into home furnishing and décor,” Xu wrote. “This idea eventually transformed into a dream, one that would loom large as I imagined my future: The world needed not another fashion designer. It needed a designer to help create a fashionable home.”
Through countless hours of research and experimentation, Xu turned to candles as her medium. In 1994, she founded the highly successful Chesapeake Bay Candle. Set in soft, frosted glass, her Mind & Body collection departed from traditional heavy scents and dark colors. Instead, it introduced a lighter, modern aesthetic designed to evoke mood and memory.
From Tears to Pearls
More often than not, the forces that propel us forward are the moments that touch us most. While Chesapeake Bay Candle grew from Xu’s ambition as a young immigrant pursuing the American dream, Blueme is the culmination of experiences through life’s highs and lows, including a heartrending regret.
“Blueme was born from a story about my father—and from a regret I carry with me every day,” Xu said.
When her father visited from China in his early 50s, Xu noticed he would empty five packets of sugar into his coffee and still say it wasn’t sweet. At the time, Xu assumed he simply had a sweet tooth, never considering it might signal something more serious—early signs of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
“We could have intervened early. He might have had a fundamentally different quality of life,” Xu said. “That is the weight I carry, and that is exactly why Blueme exists. I wanted to build something that uses our sense of smell, not just for beauty or pleasure, but also for health—for early awareness.”
Very soon, Blueme will unveil an olfactory wellness platform at its Nolita flagship, featuring a 30-scent smell test, training, and therapy, providing important insights into neurological health.
“Loss of smell is linked to over 180 health conditions,” Xu said. “Most people have no idea their olfactory health is declining until it is already significantly diminished. We want to change that. We want smell testing to become as routine as a vision test or a hearing check.”
The name “Blueme” reflects this philosophy and Xu’s hopes for her customers. It carries three layers of meaning: “Blue,” her favorite color, embodies calm, depth, and “something that holds you without demanding anything in return.” Pronounced like “bloom,” the name suggests growth and the unfolding of one’s full potential. And “me” is a reminder to pause amid the bustle and listen to the call of your heart.
“We live in a world that asks so much of us—as mothers, daughters, professionals, caregivers,” Xu said. “Blueme is a quiet insistence that returning to yourself is not selfish. It is necessary. It is, in fact, where everything else begins.”
The Alchemy of Emotion
At Blueme, each fragrance begins not with an ingredient, but with the emotion it’s designed to evoke. The team collaborates with neuroscientists and fragrance experts, refining each scent over six to eight months of testing before it is ready.
Customers choose candles based on what each one needs in the moment. On the Blueme website, a brief quiz helps guide clients toward their ideal match. The question is not “What’s popular?” but “What do I need today?”
Xu explains that a person’s nervous system shifts throughout the day: There is a morning self and an evening self, a focused self, and a depleted one—moments that call for grounding, and others that call for release. No single scent can meet all of these states. Blueme’s collection is therefore designed as a daily journey with fragrances mapped to the natural rhythm of daily life.
As she put it, Blueme is not simply a fragrance company or a wellness app. “We are the bridge between the science of smell and the lives of the people who need it.” she said.
Zen in Imperfection
In September 2025, Xu opened Blueme’s flagship store in Nolita, a Manhattan neighborhood. The moment she stepped onto Elizabeth Street, she felt an immediate sense of belonging.
Nolita, for “Northern Little Italy,” with its laid-back charm and understated chic, is a hidden gem tucked into the core of the Big Apple. Its quaint, intimate streets resonate with Blueme’s ethos, attracting those who value craft, restraint, and intention over excess.
“I knew that if Blueme was going to have a home, it had to be there,” Xu said. “I rented [the space] without looking. I just knew.”
Still, standing in the empty shop, she faced a challenge: how to showcase fragrance, something that has no form. For Xu, the answer was unequivocal. To give fragrance center stage, everything else must recede. In a world that constantly demands more visuals and more stimulation, the real discipline lies in knowing when to have less.
Over her three-decade career, Xu witnessed a market increasingly saturated with noise. Yet she remains grounded in the belief that the right audience will find its way. She said that the real challenge is learning how to be heard without compromising identity.
“Our story—my father, the science, the mission—is real,” Xu said. “And I believe that truth, told in the right way to the right people, is ultimately more powerful than any amount of noise.”
“The design is anchored in Zen teachings, particularly the idea that quietness is not absence,” Xu explained. “It is not negative space. Quietness invites. It provokes a deeper kind of movement [and] connection. When a space stops competing for your attention, something else becomes possible.”
This belief is also reflected in the handcrafted ceramic vessels that hold the candles—no two are exactly alike. One of the most important lessons Zen has taught her is that nature is not perfect; it’s within that imperfection that beauty resides.
“If we accept that about nature, we must accept it about ourselves,” Xu said. “When we embrace our imperfections rather than hide them, and appreciate each other’s [imperfections]—that is where something genuine and lasting can grow. That philosophy is woven into every part of how I build and lead.”
Our Innate Power
Reflecting on her journey, Xu is grateful for the opportunities and challenges that have shaped who she is today. One lesson has stayed with her above all: Your experience is your asset, not your limitation.
“I spent years trying to make my story fit a more conventional mold. I thought my immigrant background, my Chinese heritage, my particular aesthetic sensibility were things I needed to translate before they could be valuable. I was wrong. They were the value. They always were.”
Coming to a new country and building a career from the ground up demanded resilience. Her Chinese heritage gave her the strength to keep moving forward, instilling a resourcefulness no classroom could teach.
“My upbringing gave me a relationship with beauty that is understated—beauty that is felt in the proportion of a room, the weight of silence, the meaning in what is not said. That sensibility lives in everything Blueme is—the restraint, the intention, the refusal to perform.”
Today, Xu seeks to inspire others in the same spirit, mentoring young people to recognize their inherent value and to build ventures that are not only personally fulfilling, but meaningful to others.
Her favorite quote, “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle,” commonly attributed to Father James Keller, neatly captures the spirit of generosity and of Blueme. “Sharing your light, your knowledge, your energy does not diminish you. It multiplies,” she said.
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is simple: “Start before you feel ready.” True passion is not defined by external reward or even innate talent, but by what you are drawn back to—again and again—even when no one is watching.
“That persistence is intelligence of a particular kind. Trust it. … Readiness is built through doing. I have never met a founder who felt fully prepared before they started,” she said. “Embrace your failures more than your successes. I have learned the most not from the things that went well, but from the things that fell apart.”
We are conditioned to fear failure, to conceal it as a vulnerability. Xu sees it differently.
“Failure forces you to think more deeply, to ask better questions, to set aside your ego and invite other people in for advice and perspective,” she said. “Would you do any of that when everything is going well? Probably not. Success can make you feel like you already have the answers. Failure reminds you that the best answers are still out there, waiting to be found.”
