When Glossy first covered Lindsay Silberman’s Hotel Lobby Candle, it was May 2021. The magazine editor-turned influencer-turned entrepreneur had introduced her candle brand in October 2020 and it was debuting at Neiman Marcus. The department store is still the brand’s main retailer, outside of its own e-commerce site. And Silberman has remained the brand’s most powerful sales tool — her 206,000 Instagram followers and 111,000 TikTok followers take her recommendations very seriously.
After four years of slinging candles, Hotel Lobby Candle is ready to enter its next chapter. On Tuesday, with the launch of two new products, the brand entered the first phase of a transition that will eventually end with its renaming to Hotel Lobby Home — the timing for the update has yet to be determined. The new products include a $48 hand wash, with two refills selling for $52, and $74 reed diffusers, with refills priced at $52.
“In 2020, I wanted to start a candle brand — and I would have been thrilled to sell a couple of candles, have fans of the brand and have it as a side business,” Silberman said. “Of course, hindsight is 20/20, and if I had been thinking as big-picture as I am now, I probably would have named brand Hotel Lobby Home from the beginning.”
To announce the brand’s expansion, Silberman played a bit of a prank on her followers, launching an Instagram account dubbed @hotellobbyhome and fueling a conversation that questioned the account’s origin. On August 16, Silberman asked her followers via her personal account’s Instagram Stories, “Sooo which one of you started an HLC fan account? I can’t decide whether to be flattered or scared.” The Hotel Lobby Candle account (43,000 followers) shared Silberman’s posts.
The @hotellobbyhome account has since amassed 712 followers, though it is private. The bio now reads “A not-so-anonymous candle snob snarking on all that is happening @hotellobbycandle 👀”
“We toyed with the idea of having an account that felt more like a community-focused inner circle, and we thought it might be interesting and a little buzzworthy [to set it up] before the launch,” Silberman said. Once someone’s request to follow is granted, they gain access to small reveals not yet shared on the @hotellobbycandle account, she said. The small subset of Hotel Lobby Candle’s followers who have made the digital trek over to the Hotel Lobby Home account are the brand’s most engaged fans and followers. “So far, we’ve even been using this as [a page for our] super-VIP community [who can be a] focus group for future launches. … It’s just experimental, but we’re having a lot of fun with it.”
As for what inspired the new products, Silberman said requests for diffusers started coming in within a month of the brand’s launch. As such, she had hoped to expand the brand beyond candles within the first year. “I didn’t realize that producing something custom, at the quality we were looking for takes a lot of time.” The new products feature custom glassware.
Though Silberman did not specify the investment required to enter the new category, she shared, “In 2024, we’ve doubled our investment in inventory compared to 2023.” Hotel Lobby Candle has been entirely self-funded since its launch. Its sales have tripled since December 2021, and candle sales are up 50% year-over-year.
This week, the brand will roll out its hand soap and diffusers in three of its best-selling scents: Signature, New York and Miami. The plan is to let the community weigh in on which scents should come next. Silberman said she envisions Hotel Lobby Home creating hand lotions next. And on the candle front, larger formats are coming for super-fans and those wanting to invest. The brand will also expand into personal fragrance this year, though Silberman declined to share details.
To market the new products, the brand will work with a host of affiliate partners, focusing on ShopMy thanks to the data it provides brands and the opportunities it provides for new creator discovery, Silberman said.
“I would rather have a ton of really passionate micro-influencers — who care and aren’t getting gifting from 50 other brands — posting about us,” she said. “When you start gifting people who are getting products from every big brand, you just get lost in the mix.”
