Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme

Mei Xu started Chesapeake Bay Candle in 1994 from her Annapolis basement, pouring wax into recycled soup cans with her then-husband David Wang. She had trained as a diplomat in China before moving to the U.S., and what began as a small home business quickly found its footing. By the end of the first year, Pacific Trade International had earned half a million dollars in revenue. In 1995, Xu's sister opened a factory in Hangzhou to handle manufacturing, allowing the business to scale far beyond the basement.

Xu soon realized that novelty candles sold hot during the holidays but had no staying power. She dug into the market and found something most competitors were ignoring: fragrance. People returned to buy more when a scent connected with them. She began blending her own fragrances, and the brand's fortunes turned. By 2005 she had launched Blissliving Home, an interior lifestyle brand, and by 2011 she was running a production and distribution facility in Glen Burnie, Maryland.

In September 2017, Newell Brands acquired Chesapeake Bay Candle for $75 million. Xu remained CEO of parent company Pacific Trade International but stepped down from the candle brand in 2018. After surviving breast cancer in 2016, she spent the next years writing a book and running a boutique for women founders before launching Blueme in late 2022 — a wellness fragrance brand built on scent science and Zen philosophy that debuted in Bloomingdale's and Saks Fifth Avenue.