Lighting the way to health

Laguna Candles, an online candle company, has undergone some major changes in the past few months.

Sharie Hendricks, owner and operator and long time Laguna Beach Realtor, has become one of the millions of people personally affected by cancer. Her husband, Clarence Hendricks, who also serves as the company’s marketing director, was diagnosed with cancer last December. The news came as a shock to Clarence Hendricks, who suddenly had to juggle his work and battling his cancer.

“It was very difficult because emotionally you’re a little bit distraught at first and it kind of hits you like a ton of bricks. And then after that you kind of realize that, you know, I still have a life to live and I’ve got to approach this as if it’s a bump in the road, and it’s something that I simply have to overcome and keep moving on,” Clarence Hendricks said.

Her husband’s diagnosis was the major reason Sharie Hendricks decided to completely overhaul her inventory. Ever since 2003, when Sharie Hendricks discovered the toxic effects of paraffin wax, her company has focused on carrying mainly soy or 100% beeswax candles, which unlike paraffin wax are also both renewable resources. Now she has decided to completely rid her entire inventory of all paraffin wax candles.

“I always loved candles, [but] one of the things that always bothered me was the soot,” said Sharie Hendricks of the time she first started noticing the possible harmful effects of certain candles. “I mean when you burn them, if you burn a lot, you can look at your ceiling sometimes and see the dark soot on the ceiling and I always wondered how it would affect us, you know, just burning candles, if it affected us physically,” Sharie Hendricks said.

After conducting some research on the toxicity of paraffin and talking with soy candle manufacturers, Sharie Hendricks decided to bring more eco-friendly candles into her business. And it was a quite a big step: Back in 2003 eco-friendly candles were almost unheard of.

“At that point soy was so new. I mean of course people made soy beans and various other things, but it was a new concept as far as the candle itself,” Sharie Hendricks said.

The idea to eliminate all paraffin candles from their company came after her husband’s diagnosis, but the decision was also made in order to keep true to their ideals of being a truly “green” company. And although he admits eco-friendly candles are more expensive, Clarence Hendricks feels there is a market for eco-friendly products in Laguna and that people will appreciate the green nature of their products.

In addition to her husband, many of Sharie Hendricks’ close family members are living with or have died from cancer. Therefore, the Hendrickses have also decided to start a partnership with the American Cancer Society and its “Light The Way To a Cure” campaign in order to donate a portion of every sale to cancer research.

“For every sale, $1 is donated toward innovative cancer research,” Clarence Hendricks said.

And if the new announcements and changes haven’t kept the Hendrickses busy enough, the couple have also recently redesigned and updated the Laguna Candles website.

“We just wanted to bring it forward and a little bit more contemporary,” said Clarence Hendricks. “It will still have a clean and easy interface, but just use more contemporary colors, make the navigation a little bit easier. Kind of be able to also tell a story and really bring the viewer into the Laguna Candles experience. That’s what we were trying to achieve.”

For more information visit www.lagunacandles.com or call (949) 494-8186.