Candles So Good They Get Hate Mail: The Story Behind Malicious Women Candle Co. | EP. #173

Wondering how to effectively scale your business while staying true to your core values? On this 173rd episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Lacie Marsh-Carroll, Founder of Malicious Women Candle Co. From starting in her kitchen to a million-dollar business, Lacie reminds us to never underestimate the power of our authenticity.

In this episode, Lacie shows us how to create an experience beyond just selling a product. Every Malicious Women Candle carries a bold, empowering message that connects with real people. In a world full of candles, Lacie's customers aren't just buying a candle – they're sending a message and making a connection. You can say they’ve become priceless... and if you want to learn how to be too- tune in.

Watch the full episode below, or visit TheEcommShow.com for more.

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Have an e-commerce marketing question you'd like Andrew to cover in an upcoming episode? Email: hello@theecommshow.com

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Candles So Good They Get Hate Mail: The Story Behind Malicious Women Candle Co.

Andrew Maff and Lacie Marsh-Carroll

CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com  |  Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff 

 Lacie Marsh-Carroll

Malicious Women Candle Co. started in 2017 on my kitchen counter with a single crock pot, and it's grown into a manufacturing facility, retail store, and candle-pouring studio. As a an aerospace engineer for 22 years, we focus on quality, repeatability and lean manufacturing. We hand-pour high quality, organic soy candles with bold, empowering messages that resonate with real people—because sometimes, laughter is the best way to cope. We’re a woman-owned business that employs a team of incredible women, offers platinum healthcare, livable wages, and donates to causes like the National Foundation for Suicide Prevention and NARAL Pro-Choice America. Our mission is to create a safe space for the 'Malicious Misfits' while proving that snark and heart can change the world.

Andrew Maff  00:03

We talked about our shit, we wrote our shit down, we set our shit on fire, and we let our shit go, and that was the shit show. Welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show. I'm your host, Andrew Maff as usual, and today I'm joined by the amazing Lacey Marsh-Carroll, who's the CEO of malicious women candle. Lacey, how you doing? You ready for good show?

Speaker 1  01:13

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on I'm excited. No worries. Very excited

Andrew Maff  01:17

to have you on the show. Very cool product line. Candles are not easy, and I know the story is always fun, so we're gonna learn a lot about that. And obviously I really want to dig into the business in itself, but I always like starting these off in the normal way. Kind of give you the floor here. Tell us a little bit about your background, how you got started with malicious women candle, and we will take it from there.

Speaker 1  01:36

Sure. Yeah, thank you. I call myself an accidental entrepreneur. I never meant to start a business. I was very happy in my career at 22 years as a aerospace engineer, and it Yeah, but in 2016 kind of my world fell apart. In a matter of three months, I lost my father, who fell off a ladder, suffered a severe TBI. My sister was hit by a farm truck while she was riding a motorcycle and broke every bone on the left side of her body. And my daughter was active duty Navy. She was in the hospital, and the culminating event was my best friend of 22 years lost her battle with depression and took her own life. And so I lost it. I lost it. I was trying. Had middle child syndrome, so I was, you know, trying to coordinate everything for everybody, and I collapsed. And so I spent a couple weeks on the couch, and my husband's like, hey, maybe you should shower. And like, see a therapist, I don't know, right, being just super supportive. And so I went and saw a therapist. My therapist encouraged me to find hobbies. She's like, you've got to do something. And I was on the way from work, I just Yeah, so I decided that I was going to learn how to make a perfect candle to light the candle for my friend Laura. And excuse me. Thank you, light. Light, you know, this candle for my friend, and I'm going to try to speed this up a little bit, but through that, through the learning how, you know, trying to make this perfect candle, I engaged my engineer brain. So I was like testing non stop, using better ingredients, because I wanted to make the perfect candle. I had 30 hours of bird time. How do I get to 35 How do I get to 40 hours of bird time? Right? We now send it 45 hour bird time, and it's all a mixture of the science between the wick, the ratios of the wax, all that stuff, right? So I had candles everywhere, all over my house. I'm just getting over a cold

Andrew Maff  03:42

same time. So, so

Speaker 1  03:44

there was candles everywhere in in the spare room, there were garage was filled with candles. And went back to therapy. My therapist is like, Lacey, you are not processing anything. You're cross obsessing. She's like, I want you to throw a party. I'm like, No. I just said no, but also I like to follow directions. So I was like, I will throw a party, but it's gonna be a shit show. And that's what I did. Invited 13 of my friends over. We talked about our shit, we wrote our shit down, we had a bonfire in the backyard, we set our shit on fire, and we let our shit go. And that was the shit show. I had all of these candles all over the house, right? So I made party favors that said shit show infused with chaos, because my shit show is chaotic. Somebody else's may be a completely different shit show still chaos. And my friends went nuts over them. They're like, Lacey, you got to sell these candles. I'm like, literally, no one's gonna buy a candle with the word shit on it. Like, no one right up on Facebook the little garage sale site in my town, and it was sold one, sold two, sold three, it I sold 72 candles in one night, right? I was like, whoa, what? And so then I packaged them all up. I, you know, put them in a little bag, little bows. People come to my porch picking up their candle orders. I'm like, I'm a bitch. Get shit done. I'm gonna put that off. And it just kept going and going. So malicious women co started as, you know, we're not malicious in the fact that we're mean, the name malicious when I made that first label came from 22 years of conversations that I had with Laura and all of the things that we would have said if only we were more malicious. That was our joke. So I was corporate. She was the perfect PTA mom. And I'd be like, Oh, I really wanted to tell that person, this, this, this, if only I was more malicious. And she wanted to tell off someone, if only she was more malicious. So when I made those little labels for the show, I was like, I'm gonna do it malicious women, candle CO and I was it was a way for me to process, you know, some of that grief and keep it alive, keep that maliciousness alive, that going for us. So yeah, hit an Etsy store. Outgrew Etsy, taught myself Shopify. If I wasn't, I didn't even have Instagram at the time, so I had to learn Instagram. I took every free master class, Google, YouTube I could find, and just kept going, I didn't, and it just kept growing. I think it just resonated with people so long answer,

Andrew Maff  06:27

it's, it's a, it's obviously a very interesting story, sad parts to it at same time. It's like, Well, you got a seven figure business out of it, so you're not, can't be mad that. So it's, it's a very it's just so interesting. I love the one of the things I always talk about, especially for a product line, like yours, right? Like, I mean it in the nicest way possible, but it's candles. Like, it's a wildly competitive space. You can't really smell it online, so, like, it kind of is what it is. So really, you have to build this community and this brand, and you like, not only with the story, but that, that positioning of, you know, the the confidence to be able to tell someone to go pluck themselves when they really need to, is what I've cursed with this show. I don't care it's my show. So like, yeah, exactly, if it's what you do, then there's you don't like it. Don't listen. So side, side note, yeah. I mean, the positioning of it, the messaging, is amazing to be able to kind of portray that, and obviously, not only have that kind of connection with your community, but also have these incredibly well engineered candles. So you mentioned it's at a 45 hour burn time right now, right Give me a comparison to like, okay, the same size candle at any random store. How long is that thing lasting?

Speaker 1  07:47

So mine are all organic soy. So I don't use any fillers, binders. I don't use so my soy comes from a certified organic wax or farm in Georgia. I don't mess around with any a lot of times. So you take your target candle, right? They'll say it is or a TJ Maxx candle. They'll say it's a soy candle. But according to the National candle Association, it can be anywhere, as long as it's 51% soy, they can call it soy, so the other half could be paraffin. That baby's gonna burn down quick, right? Because it's just, it's just how it is. So mine, mine are, I guess I they're just, it's the proper wick. It's, you're gonna get a lot of hot throw because I'm using the right size and the correct wicks. And, yeah, I mean, mine are better.

Andrew Maff  08:40

Yeah, that's all they need. Yeah. Where are you selling?

Speaker 1  08:43

Okay, so I have my brick and mortar store is on the little historic town in Washington, on Snohomish, Washington. So I have my brick and mortar and then I have my Shopify retail that accounts for about 35% of my sales, my wholesale accounts for about 35 40% I we're up right now in fourth quarter. But so wholesale i i sell on fair I sell on Amazon, tick tock shop and Facebook shop,

Andrew Maff  09:14

so all over the place. How's, how's Amazon treating you? That's a

Speaker 1  09:18

toughy. That is a toughy. Yeah. So too long of a story to get into, but we've just recently regained control of our Amazon store back so we're rebuilding. Yeah, that's a whole podcast in itself, believe me, Okay, we'll

Andrew Maff  09:33

do it again. What about, what about fair? I know a lot of people have started to try to dive into that. How is that? How's that been treating you so far.

Speaker 1  09:40

You pay to play. You pay to play so and I pay fair is incredible. Fair has so I'm I have 1500 wholesale partners through fair that carry my my candles in their boutiques. Yeah, but you gotta do those sponsored posts. You've gotta. That's how we're getting those new ones constantly. So fair. Does the marketing for you? If you pay them?

Andrew Maff  10:05

Yeah, no. Love it. Just like everyone else, okay, you gotta pay the plan. What's everything? How's tick tock doing for you? Tick tock. And we're growing.

Speaker 1  10:14

So we just launched that, like, a month and a half ago. So we're still building out our affiliate program. Actually, I'm sorry we just launched our affiliate program so it's only days old, but really excited to just dominate the world of scent and flame on Tiktok, yeah,

Andrew Maff  10:34

and you're definitely covering a lot of bases between obviously brick and mortar, but then your own website, Amazon, fair, through other brick and mortar, tick tock, Facebook shop, so like you, you've got a lot of them in a good spot. Tick tock will be very interesting. I could see how a product line like yours with a messaging like yours would do fantastic on a channel like that. So I would be very interested see how that affiliate program maps out, and they have, you should be able to do that affiliate program through Amazon as well. That creator connections thing that they have have, you guys, well, I know you just got access to your shop yet, but

Speaker 1  11:10

yeah, we're just stepping into that, hoping to launch that first quarter next year. Yeah, yeah, that

Andrew Maff  11:15

one will be interesting. I've seen a lot of hit or miss with it. I've seen some people do really well with it. I've seen others where it's just like you're not getting much, but it's also dependent on the product line, like anything else in this world. What about, from a marketing perspective, where do you Where are you kind of putting most of your eggs right now?

Speaker 1  11:32

So there is an interesting shift that I'm noticing right now, where I think so here's here's the situation. You got Tiktok, which was massive, right? We're up to, like, 312,000 followers on Tiktok. And from 2020 to, I say, about through 2023 Tiktok was it. We were, we were constantly going viral group. You know, we were getting that. I'm what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing is that with the Tiktok shop and the heavy push of the ads and the sponsored posts, people are coming back to reels. And so now what we're seeing is reels is where we're getting all of our engagement where reels were dead, you know, 2020 2023, that area, and now reels is just exploding for us. So it's so interesting to see that, you know, I'm I'm trying to get into Tiktok shop to become part of the problem and but all of the engagement over on reels really open and authentic. So I never paid for ads for the first three years of my business, everything was organic. It was all word of mouth, people, sharing and and so we were able to, and it's just been me talking like telling Everyday Stories. I talk about rude customers. We have a Karen board in my brick and mortar, and any because, I mean, no, seriously, I'm in a super ultra conservative town, and I'm the loud mouth feminist that, you know, makes edgy display windows. And I do, I do? I get letters. I'll post the letters in the windows, but we have this Karen board, and it's been so many days since our last Karen, and, you know, people walk and be like, Y'all need Jesus. And, you know, you guys. And so I just tell those stories. I tell stories of them, and I had a palette of, you know, soy wax fall into the parking lot on 100 degree day. And I just tell it all. And I think people are here for that. People know what a candle looks like. I don't need to do pretty lifestyle pictures. They want to hear the what it's like to run a business. And, you know, yeah, marketing, yeah,

Andrew Maff  13:50

there's definitely, there's definitely certain businesses I find that do really well when it has a founder behind it that's just extremely transparent. Like, just, this is what it's like running this business. This is the pros. These are the cons. I have a friend of mine I went to high school with who does something similar for spouses in the military, and her whole thing is just, you know, telling the story in the background. It sounds very similar to that, and it's amazing, like, how that connection with your community becomes just it helps that business grow so much, and it does make you not be so reliant on things like paid advertising and going down that route. But you had mentioned that you hadn't advertised for a while, so I'm assuming that you are now. How's that going?

Speaker 1  14:38

Phenomenal we have been working with, can I name drop? Sure, go for it. We work with nine digital out of Lake Stevens, Washington. They they have it down. We're down to like, three and four cents a click on our Google ads, which is insane in the candle market. So I don't take any responsibility for how well the. Ads are performing. I just picked the right company to work with, and yeah, ads are going great.

Andrew Maff  15:06

Nice is that, in most of the ads doing through Google ads, are you doing anything else, like through meta Tik Tok, or anything like

Speaker 1  15:12

that? Yeah, so we do meta ads, Google ads, we sponsor, you know, listings on on Amazon. Again, we're just starting with the tick tock, but we've run a couple sponsored things, you know. But, yeah, have you gone

Andrew Maff  15:26

down the influencer rabbit hole yet?

Speaker 1  15:29

Yes, not great. Yeah.

Andrew Maff  15:35

You don't have to name drop those. If you don't.

Speaker 1  15:38

We've had some amazing we've had some amazing couple partnerships, but no, it so didn't work. Difficulty is, is you send them out the the influencer package, right? And it's, it has all the highlights of the product, the brand, everything, and you pay the $500 or you pay the $1,000 and you get back a unboxing video with them, you know, pulling out the candle. And they're like, Oh, smells so good. It's so funny. And that's, you know, I can do that.

Andrew Maff  16:13

So, yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting channel to focus on, or strategy I should to focus on, because, to your point, like, it's, it's easy to get it's easy to get screwed over from certain certain influencers. And it's just like, this does pointless. And why would I do this? Especially like if you're not, you know, at a certain point, you start aiming at just brand awareness, and you're not really looking at sales, and you've got to be massive to start to get to that justification. So even in the beginning, it's kind of like, what am I really aiming for here? Where could I use these funds better? So it doesn't surprise me that that didn't go as well as you wanted it to, yeah,

Speaker 1  16:50

as well as is the storytelling. When I tell stories, those get shared, they get reposted. You know, the authentic stuff, I think with tick tock, pushing these sponsored ads so heavy, people are over it. They're over it. They're just going, Oh, ad go, everything's Yeah, so yeah, I don't know, yeah.

Andrew Maff  17:11

What's what? What's the game plan with the business? Is the thought to continue to expand the product line? Are you thinking that one day you'll sell it? What's What are you thinking of taking it obvious.

Speaker 1  17:22

Well, you know, I don't want to work forever, so I'm turning 50 next month. I can't believe I'm turning 50. It's crazy. But I, you know, I want to run the business until I don't. And mailman's here. Dogs are going nuts, all right, so, but right now I yeah, I am working on a new product, not ready to talk about it yet. I'm super excited about it. The goal here is to create so we have the malicious misfits, right? And basically it's, you don't have to fit in everywhere, but you fit in here. Doesn't matter what, where you come from, your past, what you know, everybody belongs, and so I'm launching a new product line that kind of embraces that. And so I'm super excited about it, and just keep going. I'll be honest, 2023 almost took me out. Yeah, 2024 has not been much better. We've had to get real creative. We've had to downsize. I had to let go of my 10,000 square foot facility and moved into a 5000 square foot facility. And that was the right business move. You know, I didn't want to lay anyone off. I didn't want to you don't for me, my people are my most important asset. We don't have a lot of turnover. I've had people that have been with me five and six years, and I would rather downsize and get real cozy, like I share my office right now with marketing team so cozy. And I'd rather you know, basically what we did is we wiped out everything that wasn't selling well, and downsized, kept my people, the ones that I absolutely I can't run this by myself, right? And to go. So now the goal is, how do we get back to where we were without, without going too fast, right? So stealing properly. I have zero debt. I've never borrowed a penny. I've started the business on dollars, yeah. So luckily, I don't owe anybody anything, and we're getting back into being profitable. We're starting to see the return on getting rid of that giant warehouse, heating that giant warehouse, right? All the stuff that we know along with that, and we're starting to see it in the P and L and so feel really good about the decision to downsize, because I'm not ready. I wasn't gonna let an economy take me out. I was just gonna have to creative.

Andrew Maff  19:56

Yeah, sometimes what you gotta do step back. Take a step forward. I love it. Lacey, really appreciate you having the show. I want to take up too much of your time. I know you're super busy. I would love to give the opportunity to let everyone know where they can find out more about you and or more about malicious Melissa, malicious women and candles, yes.

Speaker 1  20:14

So yeah, TikTok @maliciouswomenco and Facebook and Instagram. @maliciouswomenco, and then, of course, our website is maliciouswomenco.com, love it across the board, so much.

Andrew Maff  20:26

Thank you appreciate it. Amazing story. Thank you so much for being on the show. Of course, everyone who tuned in, thank you as well. Please do the usual thing, rate review, subscribe whatever on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the ecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you all next time. Have a go.

Narrator  20:46

Thank you for tuning in to The E-Comm Show head over to theecommshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E-Comm Show is brought to you by BlueTuskr, a full service digital marketing company specifically for e-commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com Now for more information. Make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of The E-Comm Show.