Today we’d like to introduce you to Tina Dazzo and Sarah Zimmerman.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Tina and Sarah. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
We are the creators of LEMA Candles. We are both originally from Chicago but met out here in LA. The friendship was enriched the day we saved two five weeks old kittens together from Hauser Blvd in Mid City. They were infested with fleas, ear mites, parasites, and everything else in between. We spent many weekend nights drinking wine and caring for those kittens. Sarah was involved in animal rescue organizations in the past but Tina was more or less a deer in headlights learning about the cat crisis in LA. It took us about six months to get those kittens clean and healthy which really opened our eyes to how hard the animal rescue life really is. Volunteers all over LA and countless rescues do this every single day with way worse situations without any real recognition and very little funding. We wanted to find a way to help without spending all the money we don’t really have. We attended a Kitty Bungalow fundraiser one night and were really inspired by all the people helping to raise money for their rescue. We bought a raffle ticket and won an Apple Watch. We decided after a couple of glasses of wine that we were going to sell the watch and buy candle supplies with the money to see if we could make a good enough candle that people would potentially buy. Flash forward a year and many scent testings later, we launched LEMA Candles in February 2019. After a year in now, we are pretty proud of where this business has taken us.
Our goal is and will always be to make eco-friendly soy wax phthalate-free candles that give back to animal rescues.
Fun Fact: Our name was derived from our rescue babies. Tina has the two kitties that we rescued from Hauser Blvd. Their names are Lucy and Ethel. Sarah has two rescue dogs named Mia and Annie. All four names combined is the name of our company LEMA.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Oh yes, we have had our struggles. For the first probably 6-8 months of learning how to make candles (before we launched our business) we were also learning how to cut wine and beer bottles to use as our candle vessels. We were so determined because we wanted to turn a used glass bottle into a repurposed candle. It was going to be our “thing.”
That Christmas (December 2018) we wanted to give candles as gifts to our friends and family back home in Chicago. We spent hours on end cutting and sanding bottles to perfection. We realized quickly after that there is just no way we could cut and sand them fast enough to keep a real inventory. We were heartbroken but it just was not realistic. We wanted to keep our pricing reasonable and it just wasn’t going to happen if we spent 8 hours sanding just 30 vessels. Not to mention the physical toll it took on our bodies hunched over sanding outside.
In the end, it was worth it because we moved forward with the plan to find beautiful looking jars that can be reused in some way. We decided on our lovely Amber Glass Jars. They are literally gorgeous when lit and once they are burned all the way down, the soy wax can be wiped out with soap and water easily which means the jar can be repurposed for spices as a small vase or really anything you’re heart desires.
Please tell us about LEMA Candles.
LEMA Candles is a small batch candle company which means we pour in small amounts to give as much attention to each vessel as possible. We use 100% soy wax and our fragrance oils are Phthalate free to create a non-toxic clean burning candle that is safe to burn around your loved ones with allergies and pets!.
And last but not least, we donate 10% of our sales to animal rescues. It is such a big reason we are doing this. In 2019 we raised $1,090.00 for a wonderful rescue called Luxe Paws. They are a rescue that consists of about 13 volunteers + additional fosters who are laser focused on the root of the cat crisis here in LA. They dedicate their free time to TNR as many areas as possible. These volunteers have full-time jobs and spend their nights trapping and their weekends getting the kitties fixed. For those who don’t know, TNR stands for Trap Neuter Return. And the idea is that if you can trap a cat, neuter them, and release them back to the streets at least you are saving more lives from being born. Luxe Paws TNR’d 1,213 cats in 2019… Their dedication is astonishing.
We are both really proud of doing exactly what we set out to do which is figure out a way to spread awareness and raise money for rescues like Luxe Paws. We are both hard working women who turned a crazy idea into a side hustle that also gives back. We hope to double the donation in 2020.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Through all the hardships we actually have always come up with a solution without losing our marbles. We balance each other out pretty well. It’s hard to say if we would do anything differently because the chaos of a start up has built this business into what it is today. With that said, one big lesson we learned this year was to better prepare for Holiday season. It turns out that candles are a BIG gift for the holidays and although we knew we would be busy, we had no clue how busy we would be. All of our suppliers were out of stock in basically everything we needed at some point or another throughout the months of October – December. It was all fine in the end but it would have made our lives a whole lot easier if we just prepped for the Holidays in the summer. Ha!
Pricing:
- 4oz Jar (any scent) – $10.00 – Burn Time: 20-30 Hours (approx)
- 8oz Jar (any scent) – $20.00 – Burn Time: 40-55 Hours (approx)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lemacandles.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lemacandles/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lemacandles
Image Credit:
Jacqueline Lee
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