These beeswax candles shaped like fruit and vegetables look good enough to eat
Jessica Gonzalez started making candles as a kind of therapy after her parents died. Her produce-inspired candles keep her connected to them
Jessica Gonzalez hustles behind her booth at a recent craft fair, frantically ringing up sales, answering questions and packaging her beeswax candles.
It is hot on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park in April, but 35-year-old Gonzalez and her fiancé, Jordan Colindres, keep their cool as a crowd gathers to admire her collection of Happy Organics candles, which look like real fruits and vegetables and are a homage to her family’s produce company.
Judging by the smiles and charmed looks on shoppers’ faces, her produce-inspired candles are less about illuminating rooms and more about sharing the joy she sought when she first started the company in 2018.
But then, it is hard not to smile at the playfully elegant Bosc pears, puckered mandarins and green-and-purple asparagus taper candles, which range in price from US$12 to US$40. Some are moulded into corn on the cob, celery and rhubarb shapes. Others are made to look like mushrooms, figs, tomatoes and snap peas.
The most popular are the small birthday candles shaped like raspberries, cherries and blackberries, packed in moulded-pulp baskets just like you would find at the grocery store or farmers’ market.
