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Meet Rejoy Marsella of Rejoy Living in Venice Beach

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Rejoy Marsella, interior designer and owner of Rejoy Living: Eco-friendly Candles that Empower Women.

Rejoy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
The entire mission behind Rejoy Living comes from wanting to encourage other women to find light in the darkness. It comes from my deep belief that it’s our privilege AND our responsibility to put positive messages and light out into the world. The idea for my eco-friendly candles that empower women came after I went through one of the absolute darkest times in my life…but let’s start at the beginning.

My background is actually in interior design. I grew my own business from the ground up, and I’ve been very blessed to work with clients in many exclusive neighborhoods all over Southern California. I always use candles in people’s homes as a critical design element; it not only creates beautiful ambient light, but it also brings an element of nature and pleasure into the home. It literally gives the room LIFE.

When shopping for candles for my design projects, I became frustrated trying to find something that worked across the board with every style; the packaging was often too busy, had a loud color scheme that didn’t fit, or smelled overwhelming and sometimes didn’t seem to smell at all!

But the worst part was that the majority of candles contained petroleum and other worrisome additives that caused soot and pollution, and frankly, I didn’t feel comfortable releasing that into the air of my clients’ homes.

Cut to: a year or so ago I was invited to design an eco-luxe gift lounge for the Emmy Awards here in Los Angeles.

It was an amazing opportunity and I was thrilled to be part of it! It was then that I made my first-ever candles for that event. I used my now-signature coconut oil blend as the base for the beautiful essential oil fragrances and parfums to create travel candles for the gift bags. And people loved them so much! They were even using it as lip balm and hand creme in addition to the original use as candles. The response was so positive and huge and I knew I was really onto something.

After that pivotal moment came another…

…my marriage had just ended and I decided to take some time away with myself to get to the core of who I am and how I want to move through the world.

I went on a transformative trip to Greece, first on my own, and then with my amazing yoga tribe. Healing from my own divorce journey had me contemplating things like, “what does LOVE mean to me?”, “what does it really mean to have FAITH?”.

As I sat with these questions, everything came together in my mind pretty distinctly: I wanted to create this candle company with the intention of celebrating everything that’s beautiful about living, and as a way to foster connection with the self, and with my community.

I came back home, and even though it was scary to start something completely unfamiliar and new, I decided to go for it.

I hunted down the best makers to assist me in finding the most eco-friendly ingredients possible. I took great care in creating the blends of fragrances, matching them to the feelings I wanted each scent to evoke. I designed the stunning black-and-white packaging that I felt could be put in any design environment and work. And I wrote my personal mantras for each candle: LOVE, JOY, FAITH, and GRATEFUL, sharing the deepest part of my personal journey in an outward way.

I will never forget the day I met with my graphic designer to unbox the very first shipment of my candles…

…we were sitting in True Foods Kitchen in Newport Beach, and we lined up all the candles in a row: LOVE, FAITH, GRATEFUL, and JOY, and under each title it reads: “unity+bliss”. The server came to take our order, took one look at the candles and said, “Oh, I get it! So, if you take love, plus joy, plus faith, plus gratitude, it equals BLISS!”. And then she sauntered off with her blond ponytail bouncing behind her. My designer and I looked at each other and said, “well, she just summed it up! Out of the mouths of babes!”.

And it’s TRUE: those four pillars of LOVE, GRATITUDE, JOY, and FAITH really do equal BLISS.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Once we got very intentional about who we were and what we wanted to create and offer, things started to run much more smoothly.

The biggest struggle came when we hired a fancy-pants marketing company that over-promised and WAY under-delivered. That was a painful lesson for our team and we lost about $10,000 over the course of a few weeks.

Here’s the thing though, after we fired the fancy marketing company we started with a small grassroots marketing campaign targeted to the specific women we wanted to serve, and things took off! That expensive lesson taught us that we are about building community – real community, not one based on popularity, likes or followers. It’s about real women reaching out and connecting with other women with the intention of inspiring, encouraging and supporting others.

Once we got back to that simple message of taking care of the earth while empowering women, we were back on track and thriving.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
I’m so proud to say the Rejoy Living candles are created from an innovative, sustainable candle wax made from 100% non-GMO, food-grade certified coconut oil, with the highest possible concentration of pure essential oils. THAT’S IT. No parabens, no soot, no nonsense. Just the cleanest-possible burn for the most eco-friendly and luxurious home fragrance experience.

When you burn a candle, the ingredients used to make that candle release into the air you breathe. That’s why we’re committed to producing luxurious eco-friendly fragrances that are healthy for your home, and sustainable for our planet.

–Natural Coconut Wax Blend
–Clean Burn, No black soot
–Paraben Free
–No GMO Coconut
–Essential oil blend
–Food Grade Coconut Oil
–Lead Free Cotton Wick
–12% Perfum Grade Oils
–Hand poured in the USA
–Sustainable wax blend

In addition, when you buy a Rejoy Living candle, you are helping girls everywhere shine their light! We’re proud to say that a portion of our proceeds goes to Girls Inc., an organization dedicated to empowering young women to discover and develop their inner strengths. Girls receive programming to inspire them to grow strong, smart and bold.

Finally, I believe that words have so much power over our mental health and well being. That’s why our candles are named after the four most beautiful qualities of the human spirit: LOVE, FAITH, GRATITUDE, and JOY. I love knowing that when someone has my candle in their home, they’re reminded of those beautiful, empowering qualities every time they see it.

Everything about Rejoy Living Candles is about sharing bliss and light.

What were you like growing up?
I grew up on my Grandparents ranch in Northwestern New Mexico and it was there that I developed my reverence and LOVE of mother nature.

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite things to do was join my grandmother in her organic garden, before organic was “a thing.” I would sit next to her in the dirt and she would pick a ripe tomato off the vine, wipe it with her apron, and I would indulge in nature’s fresh nutrients. It was paradise!

I still believe the closer to nature we keep our consumables, the better. That’s why our candles are made with food-grade coconut wax. Mother Nature gets her gifts to us right every time!

Pricing:

  • Luxury Size Candles $38
  • Travel Candles $22

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
Photographer: Lori Brystan

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