Jessica González rushes behind her booth at the recent Renegade Craft Fair, frantically ringing up sales, answering questions and packaging her beeswax candles.
It's hot on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park in April, but Gonzalez, 35, and her fiancé, Jordan Colindres, keep calm as a crowd gathers to admire her collection of Happy Organics candles, a tribute to her family's produce business in the Central Valley that looks like real fruits and vegetables.
“I love doing in-person events because it's so fun to see people's reactions,” she said a few months later. “It makes me feel good to see other people find joy in my candles. They often say, 'Oh, that's so much fun.' is “It’s funny to have a cherry candle on top of your birthday cake.”
1. A staff member removes a $26 beeswax corn candle from its mold at the Happy Organics studio in downtown Los Angeles. 2. Each mixed berry and beeswax birthday candle set is made with real mixed berries: strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and cherries. A set of 10 costs $30. 3. Green Bartlett pears and heirloom tomatoes, $24 to $40.
Judging by the smiles and delighted looks on shoppers' faces, her produce-inspired candles are less about lighting up rooms and more about sharing the joy she sought when she founded the company in 2018.
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glass blowers to fiber artists, creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
But then, it's hard not to smile at the playful, elegant Bosc pears, crinkled tangerines, and green and purple asparagus taper candles, which range in price from $12 to $40. Some are molded into the shape of ears of corn, celery and rhubarb. Others are made to look like mushrooms, figs, tomatoes and peas. The most popular are the small birthday candles shaped like raspberries, cherries, and blackberries, packaged in molded pulp baskets, like those found at the supermarket or farmers' market.
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González did not start out as a designer. The youngest of nine children, she was born in 1991 in Salinas and later moved to Merced, where she grew up on a 10-acre farm. She studied computer science at Mills College, then worked in technology consulting in the Bay Area and eventually became the chief technology officer of an agricultural technology company. When his mother, Angela, became ill in 2016, he returned to Merced to be with his family.
When his mother died suddenly shortly after moving home, González left the tech industry. “I wasn't connected to what I was doing,” she said. “I wanted to find something more meaningful; something I loved. I didn't want my ego to keep me stuck in what I studied in college. I decided to allow myself to try new hobbies and passions and seek joy again.”
After his mother's death, he began working with his father Salvador and his uncles in the family apiary, where they managed more than 30 hives. (His grandfather was also a beekeeper in Michoacán, Mexico). Soon, he began selling his raw honey at local farmers markets. In a heartbreaking twist, her father was diagnosed with cancer a year later, so she began making cannabis-infused honey, balms and chocolates to help ease his pain.
González learned beekeeping on his family's farm in Merced.
(Melanie Smelcer)
When he saw that beeswax candles, which last much longer than paraffin candles, were selling faster than honey, he decided to focus on making candles from the remains of his uncles' hives.
I was only 25 years old, but it was a turning point. “It was one of those moments where I felt like I needed to change my path,” he said. “I needed to change everything in my life.”
Jessica González and her father Salvador on their family farm in Merced. (Gonzalez family)
González at the Happy Organics studio in downtown Los Angeles. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
When her father died in 2018, she inherited his bees and founded Happy Organics, although she hadn't planned to start a business. After experiencing so much loss, making candles became a kind of therapy. “It felt great to get back to working with my hands, something I thought I would never have time for,” she said.
His older sister, Sonia González, said González reminds her a lot of their father, who reinvented himself many times over the years.
The cactus is molded from a real cactus and hand poured into 100% pure beeswax in the Los Angeles studio.
“He grew up as a small-town boy in the rural mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, and worked in restaurants, cut Christmas trees, and picked strawberries and broccoli in the fields of Salinas,” he wrote in an email. “From there, she began selling products door-to-door, then at flea markets, and eventually built her own product distribution business from scratch. As the youngest of nine children in a working-class family, Jessica has always been incredibly resourceful, responsible, and amazing at reinventing herself.”
Like many millennials, González taught herself how to make candles by watching YouTube videos. She started with hand-dipped candles, working in the farm garage, which helped her feel safe and connected to her parents. “It was a really nice environment to try something new and creative,” he said.
Inspired by her family's products, she molded real corn, strawberries and cherries in plaster and then made a silicone mold to create copies. Even when using the same mold, the color can vary from batch to batch and the way it is cooled also affects the result. “That's what handmade things are like,” he said. “There's always some variation.”
Cherry molds make cherry candles in the Happy Organics studio in downtown Los Angeles.
Variety of fruit and vegetable candles.
When she moved to Los Angeles in 2023 to be with Colindres, her business took off. “Los Angeles is a great place to grow up,” he said. “There are a lot of opportunities here. When I go to a farmers market, I never know who I'll meet.”
She sold her candles in person at craft shows, at the Hollywood Farmers Market and, most recently, during a residency at the PF Candle Co. showroom in Echo Park.
1. A staff member trims the wicks on a pair of carrot birthday candles, $22. 2. Gonzalez walks past shelves of candles in the Happy Organics studio in downtown Los Angeles. 3. Asparagus taper candles, $30.
“I have a lot of respect for her as a fellow candle maker (making molds isn't easy), but learning more about her story and how her food and wax choices reflect her family's history gave it a lot of meaning,” PF Candle Co. founder and creative director Kristen Pumphrey said in an email. “It's been a tough couple of years for L.A. businesses, so we need to stick together – there's this wonderful sense of community that's home to a local brand that's passionate about its work.”
As her business has expanded, her products are now available at Terrain, Joan's on Third, and MoMA Design Store, in addition to her website. He has also had to source beeswax from other suppliers around the country to meet demand.
González holds a cabbage candle.
Kimberly Curtis, owner of Hide & Seek Vintage in Studio City, said Gonzalez's strawberry and cherry birthday candles “flew off the shelves last year” during the holidays. “Our customers love them,” he added.
Still, González remains connected to her roots in the Central Valley. Everything she and her small team make in downtown Los Angeles is handmade and “takes time,” she said, describing the steps needed to make quality candles. Right now, her favorite is the Nopal Cactus candle, which she made from a clipping from an employee's garden. While others help her with production, wholesale management and packaging, she focuses on sales, content and completely new product development.
When asked if she has any advice for other people who want to start their own business, González admits that sometimes she feels overwhelmed.
In 2013, González and his family gathered at their ranch in Merced to celebrate his parents' anniversary.
(Gonzalez family)
“The most important thing that has helped me get through the most difficult times is my why or my reason for starting,” he said. “I think it has to be very strong. That's what gave me a lot of comfort when I felt like quitting: going back to the beginning and remembering why I started this.”
For González, his reason is always close to his heart. “I wanted to feel connected to my parents in some way,” she said. “This was a good representation of my upbringing.”
