Meet Alicia Reisinger | Founder/Creative Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alicia Reisinger and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alicia, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Surrounding myself with humans who are really passionate and great at what they do best. Building a team – whether that means on your business’s payroll or contractors – can be really fun and also frightening at the same time. It took be awhile to be okay with accepting that I didn’t have to know everything about everything…or that I even should!

I am incredibly passionate about igniting change in the arena of working women, specifically working mothers. Creating a movement where women feel supported to challenge the status quo of when and how to work. And I was doing this long before the pandemic challenged working norms. I want to give women and moms a way to work differently that celebrates them as unique humans…working in a way that suits us as individuals rather than robotically pumping out work within an allotted timeframe set by production-based standards in early century America.

So, I worked to build a team in this way. A team of really special humans that I believe in and who believe in me and the beautiful things we’re creating at Wax Buffalo.

What should our readers know about your business?
My oldest daughter, Navy, was born with a cleft lip and palate. When Navy was born I was traveling the world as a TV producer and on-air host for a television show called “Footnote”. Navy turned my world upside down in a really beautiful way. Her birth forced me to pause and be still with her as my husband and I worked through Navy’s treatment, surgery, and ultimately her healing. In the process, I slowly found my love of candles again. Something I had adored doing as a child with my Grandma Ferne, the art of candle making. Pouring candles again was a great way to center and re-align with my own spiritual journey and make something safe and beautiful for my family.

It was important to us that we used clean and natural products in our home, so I began researching and learning more about the candles that were mass-produced and sold mainstream at the time. And what I learned about petroleum-based candles was really unsettling and I knew I wanted to create clean and safe candles for my family and our home.

So, with a whiskey in hand, I would pour candles at night after I put my four kiddos to bed. Slowly I began to make candles for friends and a close friend encouraged me to try selling them. Finally, I agreed and put a few in a local shop. They sold out pretty much immediately. I made $100 from that very first sale and invested that right back into my business…ultimately creating what Wax Buffalo is today. I continued to make candles in my kitchen until I opened our flagship store just over 2 years ago and now all of our candles are hand poured in small batches right here in the heart of the midwest. Wax Buffalo has since grown from what was once a side hustle to a million dollar+ business with 14 employees and sold on the shelves of wholesale partners across the world, including Whole Foods.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I love great food and even better wine. We have some fabulous local spots in Lincoln and even more specifically in our sweet little downtown district called the Haymarket. Vincenzo’s is one of my favorite spots for Italian eat and drink. I love to grab fresh local veggies, the prettiest summer blooms and the best chili rellanos you’ve ever dreamed of from our charming farmer’s market on summer Saturday mornings. There really is just so much to see and do in Lincoln’s Haymarket!!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
Back in 2020, in the thick of covid, Susan Petersen, the founder of Freshly Picked out of Utah, put together a mastermind online for women wanting to uplevel their small business game. We jumped on Zoom weekly for a couple of hours and each week she’d invite a different bad ass human to teach us all something they were experts at facilitating.

She encouraged us, challenged us, and spoke some real real hard truths into our souls. And at the end of the 8 weeks I was implementing real sustainable changes into my company and it flourished under this new strategic path forward. I will forever be thankful to her for putting on these sessions, and her voice still bonks around in my head at times as I’m making hard decisions for this little candle land here in the midwest.

Website: waxbuffalo.com

Instagram: @waxbuffalo

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-reisinger/

Facebook: /waxbuffalo

Other: TikTok: @waxbuffalo

Image Credits
Nikki Moore Photography @nikkimoorephoto