Mia and Bella in Jewelled Aroma

Sisters Mia and Bella Doherty are two young women with their eyes to business.

When everyone else was baking banana bread during lockdown, Mia (14) and Bella (12) persuaded their mammy, Maria, to let them start making wax melts in her Cornshell Fields kitchen, in February 2021.

Speaking to Derry Now in their newly opened Racecourse Road store ‘Jewelled Aroma by Mia and Bella’, Mia said she was inspired to take the entrepreneurial path by all the family businesses she saw growing up.

Smiling, Mia said: “Both of my brothers worked for my daddy, who owns the carwash next door, so Bella and I wanted to work as well. That’s where the idea of making wax melts, room sprays and carpet fresheners came from. Basically, I love nice smelling items.

“So I went to mammy and said I wanted to make and sell scented melts. After a bit of research, we found wax melts, so we started making them. Bella and I made all of the melts you see on the shelves today.

“Mammy took care of all of our advertising and publicity on social media because she said we were too young to be going online. Mammy also did the legal stuff because we needed CLP labels, which is to do with chemical substances and mixtures in certain products.

“During lockdown we did doorstep deliveries,” said Mia.

“They actually roped their daddy in to be their chauffeur,” laughed Maria.

“They took the orders online and would have gone door-to-door doing deliveries,” she said.

“I think people were behind them because of their ages, which was brilliant.

“The business has really grown. It got to the stage where the girls wanted to introduce so many other products and the house was coming down with materials that I said, ‘‘No, no more. Nothing else’.

“That is where the idea for the shop came from. Here they can do the production themselves and everything is out of the house. Everything is under one roof and they are able to expand into the other areas they wanted to,” said Maria.

Bella said Jewelled Aroma had recently started making reed diffusers and selling bath bombs and soap.

“We are also thinking about branching into candles at some stage in the future,” said Bella. “Our school, St Mary’s College has also been very supportive since we started.”

Initially, Mia and Bella turned to the bank of mammy and daddy to get started but according to Maria they have ploughed most of the money they made back into the business. “Until it came to the shop,” she added, “then we helped them again.”

Mia said she was saving her money because she wanted to study medicine, maybe at Queen’s University.

“Medicine is such a demanding degree, I don’t think I would be able to work and study at the same time. With Jewelled Aroma, I save all of my money and hopefully I’ll have a good bit for university. Science is one of my favourite subjects,” said Mia.

Mia and Bella in Jewelled Aroma.

Bella, who enjoys Technology at school, said their cousins, Michaela and Natasha Coyle look after the shop when she and Mia are at school.

“We are here on Saturdays. We have regular updates on Jewelled Aroma products on Facebook and Instagram. We have also opened a Christmas Club.

“Customers can order their items and leave a five pound deposit. Coming up to Christmas they can pay the amount off and collect their orders.”