“I wanted to do something a little bit different”: Salford local makes homemade candles to raise money for breast cancer

A Salford resident has started a homemade candle-making business with the aim of raising awareness and money for breast cancer, in honour of her mother’s story.

Paige Tucker, 23, who is a content manager by trade, started candle-making to ease her lockdown boredom. She was inspired by both her mother’s own battle with cancer and artistic skills.

“My mum actually had breast cancer a few years back and I was looking at these body candles and I thought there’s not much diversity in the body candles that people are selling so decided I would make the popular ones […] but I also wanted to do something a little bit different.”

“My mum is actually a potter and makes her own pottery and sells it at different craft fairs and has her own website. So, I kind of took inspiration from her.”

“She’s the inspiration for the whole business really. It’s celebrating something she has gone through and raising awareness of something she’s gone through. It was nice to be able to use some of her craft, i.e. pottery making, to kind of start the business.”

The candles cost £7.50, with one pound from each sale going to charity.

“I decide I wanted £1 of every sale of every candle to go to breast cancer awareness so I was doing it for a good cause and not just doing it for the sake of doing it.”

Her mother was ‘over the moon’ when Paige told her about her fundraising efforts. In the future, she plans to collaborate with her mother and use her pottery skills to design candle holders.

Paige also makes a range of other body candles, including a pregnant body and is planning on designing more in the future.

She has also designed and sculpted her own candle mould of a body with one breast.

“This [candle] is just making a comment on that not everyone’s body is exactly the same,” she explained.

Before this candle is widely available, Paige wants to do more testing to ensure the candle is perfect but says it should be on sale soon.

But for now, Paige is running her homemade candle business, SQAD, on her own through Etsy while raising awareness for a good cause.

She said: “If people out there have an idea or a skill set they’re not using […] just give it a go and you’ll figure it out as you go along, and you could probably surprise yourself and you never know, you could be really successful.”