Luxjoy and Comfort Helps You Gift With Style

What do you do when you want to send a gift, but cannot seem to find a single thing that is what you were hoping for? Plenty of people would just throw up their hands and loudly complain, then go ahead and find something that is available but doesn’t quite match up to what they had in mind.

Or, they could do what Rachel Silberman did, and start up a business that DOES offer those items. 

When Rachel was searching for gifts that said to the recipient “I’m thinking of you” and “you are seen”, she soon found that it was very difficult to find items that spoke to those outside of regular LGBT spectrum; those who identified as poly, asexual, intersex, and other orientations who tend to be lumped into the larger community in general or who are often forgotten entirely. 

Setting that as her goal, she founded her company, Luxjoy and Comfort, in 2019 with the mindset of fostering connection with and bringing joy and recognition to people of all ages and orientations. As a person who identifies as Biromantic (Asexual and Bisexual), she knew what it felt like to want to be seen, to be acknowledged, and to know that there were others out there who needed to know that they were not alone. That set into motion her plan to offer items that represented everyone as being an integral part of the expansive rainbow community.

Of course, as anyone who has contemplated the idea of starting a small business can attest, Rachel soon found that one of biggest obstacles in doing so is often finding the capital to get it off the ground and accumulate enough product. That wasn’t an issue when the orders were coming in as orders of ones and twos, but she had loftier goals in getting Luxjoy and Comfort being seen. 

For instance, she is planning have a booth at Pride this year, and needed to be able to bulk-order 500 tumblers and over two hundred coffee mugs to prepare, which was not going to come cheap. Rachel reached out to locally based nonprofit WomenVenture (www.womenventure.org) as a resource to assist her in getting a loan to make her plans for Pride a reality. It wasn’t long before she had her product and could commence with creating her wares for her Pride booth by hand.

I sat down with Rachel over lunch one day to talk to her about her company, and a planned hour or so lunch quickly turned into a fascinating multi-hour chat. 

How did you decide that what the Twin Cities needed was a business like yours? What was the spark that came to life in your mind that just shouted “This! This is what I want do”? 

It was a journey! At first I wanted to create a subscription box with books and fun items inside, but I realized pretty quickly the startup cost was more than I could afford. So I decided to do subscription boxes on demand, which ended with gift boxes after I went to the Gift Basket Association conference which taught me all about the gifting industry.

Tell our readers what sets your gift boxes apart from others that they may find while perusing the Internet. What makes them special, and why should our readers choose yours over the multitudes of others available out there? 

My gifts are high quality for a great price. There are niche boxes like book-themed, LGBTQIA+, cancer, mental health, and Zodiac. The mugs and tumblers you see on my website were designed and created by myself. I have the machinery to put anything you want on a mug in-house. That means there’s no minimum! That makes my business different from anyone else in the Twin Cities.

Have you always had an interest in creating luxurious, fun, unique gifts that are so reasonably priced and yet allow you to feel like you’re really pampering or rewarding yourself or a friend? 

I’ve always been a gifter and have wanted to make people smile. My love language is gifts, so I’ve always had a knack for this type of business.

Do you have a storefront, or is everything done out of your home? And if so, are you working toward having an actual brick-and-mortar, or do you prefer doing it as an online-only business?

Right now everything is done in my home. I’m hoping in the future to have a warehouse, but for now it’s online only! I don’t think I’m going to have a storefront, but never say never.

Can your gift boxes be customized with a variety of your items shown on your website to suit the customer’s needs or wants? Say, someone REALLY wants a pair of those cute Pride socks instead of another coffee mug? 

That’s definitely something I can do. Part of what makes me unique is custom gifting. If you give me a call/email and say you want a certain theme, I can make that happen. I’ve had people call me to add or take out items from a gift. There are certain gifts on my website that can’t be modified, but most can.

Let’s talk about your LGBTQIA+ line of gifts. Of course, you have gift boxes for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender folx, but I really love that you literally have boxes that are devoted to showing recognition of Agender, Aesexual, Intersex, Genderqueer, and several others in the whole of the rainbow spectrum. Why was it important to you to make sure that they’re represented so fully as well as the others? 

As a Biromantic (asexual and bisexual) person, I went onto Etsy and typed in “Asexual gift boxes” and NOTHING popped up. There was lesbian, trans, rainbow… but nothing representing myself. Then I went to Google and searched the same thing. Nothing. I wasn’t being represented! I realized right then and there I needed to fill a need. Not just for me, but for everyone that’s usually forgotten. That includes orientations like agender, asexual, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, and polysexual. I’m thinking of adding more (like aromantic and bigender) in the future. I’m selling at Pride this year and will have holographic mugs and tumblers with 13 different flags on them. I’m hoping to bring about 500 tumblers and 250 mugs. That’s a lot for me to make, but it’s worth it!

Right now if you type into Etsy “asexual gift box” there are 5 boxes that pop up, but only two agender, and one intersex – my own shop. There still needs to be representation. The LGBT doesn’t stop at the T, you know? There are so many orientations that crave representation like myself.

So there you have it! If you’re looking for a unique gift box for a special person in your life, then look no further than Luxjoy and Comfort! Rachel Silberman will have you covered, no matter what color and combination of stripes are on your Pride flag. 

Additionally, not only does Rachel provide opportunities to purchase gifts that you won’t be able to find elsewhere without difficulty, she also gives back to the community. She donates 5% of proceeds to My Health for Teens and Young Adults in Minnesota, a non-profit organization that helps young adults and teens with counseling, pregnancies, LGBTQIA+ services, education, support and so much more. You can learn about this amazing organization at https://myhealthmn.org/ .

Luxjoy and Comfort’s wide range of gift boxes can be found at www.luxjoyandcomfort.com