Reimagining Fragrance: How Mei Xu’s Blueme Is Making Scent the New Frontier of Wellness

When fragrance entrepreneur Mei Xu stepped away from Chesapeake Bay Candle, the multimillion-dollar company she built from scratch, she didn’t expect to return to the world of scent. But a confluence of personal reflection, pandemic-era awakening, and scientific curiosity pulled her back but this time with a purpose far deeper than packaging beautiful aromas.With her new venture, Blueme, Xu is pioneering a movement that positions fragrance as a wellness tool rooted in neuroscience, emotional healing, and sustainability.

Xu’s fascination with scent began long before Covid-19 made the sense of smell headline news. Years ago, she visited the IFF fragrance lab in New Jersey, where a scientist explained how aroma molecules trigger deep emotional responses, and that losing the sense of smell could indicate an underlying health issue. That moment stuck with her. But it was only later that the pieces truly clicked.

“Covid happened and suddenly the sense of smell, the ‘Cinderella of the senses’, became central to how people understood their own well-being. Losing it meant something was wrong. That renewed cultural attention made me even more curious about the science,” Xu says.“Around the same time, I reflected on my father’s experience with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. I remember him adding bags of sugar to his coffee and still saying it wasn’t sweet enough. Looking back, it was a sign he had lost his sense of taste and smell. It made me wonder: how many people with degenerative conditions experience this long before diagnosis?”

Blueme flips the traditional fragrance model on its head. Instead of starting with ingredients or marketing campaigns, Xu and her team begin with a question: What emotional state do you want to feel? Calm? Focused? Joyful? From there, they collaborate with top fragrance houses to create scents that deliver those sensations, backed by research and rigorous testing.

“The sense of smell is the only sense where molecules from the outside world physically connect with our brain through the olfactory system. When aroma molecules reach the protein of the olfactory bulb, they activate reactions that send signals to areas of the brain tied to emotion, calm, focus, joy, and relaxation, as well as memory,” Xu says. “It’s an incredibly complex system: the sense of smell engages more than 400 receptors, compared to just over 50 for sight and hearing.”

While the science is central, Blueme’s design choices are equally intentional. Ditching traditional glass jars, the team chose more sustainable ceramic vessels that require far less energy to produce and can be reused. Then the brand launched a full refill system.“To me, true luxury is something you want to keep, something beautiful and meaningful enough to give multiple lives. With Blueme, you keep the vessel you love, and simply refill the scent. You’re not buying packaging or jars over and over again. That feels modern, responsible, and luxurious in the truest sense,” she says.“In that sense, we disrupted the beauty and home-fragrance space. We’re offering wellness benefits in a way that lets consumers feel good and do good,” she says.

Launching a brand today, Xu acknowledges, is a very different challenge than when she started Chesapeake Bay Candle in the '90s. The business model is now omnichannel with direct-to-consumer, retail and experiential. Her team is smaller but more agile, with faster decision-making and an unwavering focus on brand integrity.“Back then, we focused primarily on wholesale and key accounts,” she says. “Unlike before, we now focus on a single brand instead of multiple collections or private label programs. That level of focus allows us to be incredibly thoughtful with fragrance evaluation, packaging development, pricing, and storytelling.”

That patience extends to Blueme’s growth plans. Even with successful placement in high-end department stores, independent retailers, a flagship in New York, and a rapidly growing fanbase, Xu is deliberately pacing expansion.“One of the biggest lessons has been patience,” she says. “We want every touchpoint to feel intentional and every product to enhance someone’s wellness journey. Growth is exciting, but building a deep relationship with consumers takes time. That pacing, slow, steady and intentional, has been the challenge and the reward.”

This philosophy will carry into Blueme’s next evolution. In addition to its core line of functional fragrance candles and diffusers, the brand is preparing to expand its portfolio beyond the traditional with enhanced diffusers, bath and body rituals, expanding the ways fragrance can support daily wellness.