About Us
Welcome, unworthy one! We are Jen (exmo) and Adri (nevermo), and we make ex-Mormon candles. Whether it’s tittering at tapirs or feeling new ownership over your body, we hope our candles will help you sit back and appreciate where you are and how far you’ve come.
When I walked away from the Mormon Church, I thought I was the only one. I saw my church friends posing outside of temples, talking about their babies’ blessings, and sharing scriptures on social media.
Because I thought I was the lone defector, I thought there was something deeply wrong with me. Was I crazy? Had Satan gotten to me? Maybe I deserved this isolation…
Ten years later, I finally discovered that I WAS NOT ALONE. And I wasn’t crazy. And that made all the difference.
The first candle we made together was “Apostasy”. Adri loves the refreshing, elegant scent of white tea, and Jen is down for any Word of Wisdom infractions!
Adri’s favorite scent is the crème brûlée in “Mood Lighting for My Little Factory”. Jen loves the smell of old books and pipe tobacco in “Bookworm Apostate”.
I love making ex-Mormon candles. It’s been beyond cathartic pouring my issues with the church into a jar and then lighting it on fire.
We Come to Our Candle Love from Different Places
Jen loves the Middle Ages. She’s dreamed of being a candlemaker since her school’s Medieval Day in the 5th grade. And the fact that her grandmother’s maiden name was Chandler, one word for a candlemaker, meant it was bound to happen!
And Adri loves making things with his hands. Whether that’s a home-cooked meal or a sassy heathen candle, he loves the creativity and the meditative process of mixing ingredients and mastering techniques to get that perfect finished product.
Handcrafted in Virginia
All of our candles are hand-poured with love from a countertop in our basement apartment (we call it our “Den of Iniquity”). We make them in small batches so that each candle gets individual attention before we package it up and send it off to you.
High-Quality
Every exmo candle is created and tested with performance, style, and safety in mind. Our scents are complex blends that we’ve perfected over several months. You won’t find them anywhere else! (WARNING: May induce unworthy behavior.)
Optimized for Upcycling
We’ve approached candle-making with sustainability in mind, and part of that is making the jars easy to upcycle. Our labels are easy to peel off, and our custom lids make the jars a statement piece for whatever second life you give them.
Meet Jen
Favorite Mormon movie
Hands down it’s Pioneers and Petticoats. It’s got frill shaming and words like ‘retrenchment’. What’s not to love?
Temple name
I never got endowed, but I would have been pretty happy with Phoebe or Eliza. I would have been less happy if they’d given me Eunice…
Favorite flavor Jell-O
I love those orange Jell-O, orange sherbet, and mandarin orange concoctions! So good. And I’m also happy that this is no longer a go-to icebreaker in social situations 😉
What I miss
Mormon hymns. I really love singing hymns together as a ward. (Now I settle for belting them out in the shower, which usually prompts Adri to go for his headphones…)
Favorite sins
Evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed. Although drinking tea and loud laughter are close seconds!
Hey!
My family converted to Mormonism when I was six. The whole thing was bizarre at first, but I came to love the church as a teenager. I “knew with every fiber of my being” that it was true, yadda yadda.
A bishop’s interview when I was 15 started me spiraling into feelings of worthlessness, which only intensified during my time at Southern Virginia University. I kept trying to hang on for a long time, but Prop 8 pushed me over the edge. I walked out in the middle of a lesson and never went back.
For years, though, I still thought the church was probably true, and I thought that I was alone in leaving, and my mental health was in a terrible place. Until finally, a decade later, a devout childhood friend left the church and started talking about it. That’s when I gave myself permission to look at church history that didn’t come from the Correlation Department.
I went digging. I found Lindsay Hansen Park’s A Year of Polygamy podcast, and it all unraveled. I knew then that I had been lied to. I had been lied to a lot. And, well… the rabbit hole proceeded from there 🙂
Now, I’ve stopped beating myself up and started healing. Making candles has been a powerful part of that healing. When I burn “Licked Cupcake”, I feel it. All my old shame falls back into a pillow of buttercream, flirtatiously twirls a bit of lemon peel on its middle finger, just laughing. And petty glee overtakes me when I light “Recommend Buster”. Rich coffee and fudge fill my room, and I smirk knowing that no matter how petty I might be, I could never be petty enough to separate families over espresso.
And after spending a decade thinking I was alone and worthless, I hope our candles can stand as physical reminders to others that none of us are alone in this, however much it might feel like that.
The journey’s been rough, but I’m so happy to have ended up here with you now. Here’s to many more years of apostasy, my fellow unclean thing!
Jen’s interview on the Latter-Day Lesbian Podcast (Episode 159)
Jen’s interview with the More Than Mormon Podcast (Episode 18)
“If we have the truth, it cannot be harmed by investigation. If we have not the truth, it ought to be harmed.” – J. Reuben Clark
Meet Adri
Favorite R-rated movie
Too many to pick a favorite, but if I have to, I’d say The Last of the Mohicans.
Favorite way to break the sabbath
A Blood Mary with Old Bay on the rim. Especially after a night of drinking and debauchery.
Favorite flavor Jell-O
Strawberry!
Favorite hot drink
It’s a toss-up between a mug of English breakfast and a flat white.
Something you'd rather do than watch General Conference?
Pretty much anything…
Hi there! Thanks for checking out our site! My name is Adrián, and I am Juanita’s (aka Jen’s) nevermo husband and fellow candlemaker.
I hate talking about myself, but here are some of the basics:
Occupation: Candlemaker
Location: Den of Iniquity (our basement apartment/candle lab)
Favorite Pet: Sancho Panza, our late English bulldog
Favorite Scent: Crème Brûlée. It’s also my favorite dessert ?
Favorite Memory: Piling into my dad’s white MGB roadster when we were little kids. My pops and my mom up front, Dan and I in the back (it was a tight squeeze).
lighting outer darkness together