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Hello!

We're Nikki & Tyler Rutledge!

And this all began with a moon circle, a passion for helping others,

and a goal to create cleaner, safer candles.

Our Story

Hi! I'm Nikki, Founder of Moonlight & Mindfulness.

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I've been fascinated by the metaphysical world ever since I was a little girl, magickally fueled by many weekend adventures into Salem, MA. I had a very untraditional upbringing, and tapping into the witchy world became a source of comfort for me.

 

That's why in early 2020, I began hosting moon circles in our apartment. It brought me so much joy to teach others about the current astrological events and how we can both harness and navigate this energy to better ourselves. After that first circle, I quickly realized, this just felt right. As more circles were held, my husband (and candle genius) Tyler, and I began chatting about creating products that folks could bring home. Shortly after that, we developed an online store. 

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Then the pandemic hit. During this time, we built our online store, created all of our products, launched an Instagram, and really dove into becoming an official small business. At the time, I was the Assistant Director for Marketing at Boston University, and soon enough, I was faced with a very tough decision. Pursue Moonlight & Mindfulness full-time and say goodbye to a solid 9-5 job, or, shut down this side project and let go of all it was igniting within me. I could no longer do both.

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Spoiler alert: I took that leap of faith and decided to pursue this full-time! It was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever had to make, but I truly felt like I was being called to continue to teach and to use my creativity in our own business. I also felt like we really had something good here. Something that I viewed like a garden - the more we cared for and loved it, the more it could continue to grow and blossom.

 

From here, with an aim to create safer candles, Tyler began researching the best way to create candles that wouldn't give me a headache, that were pet-friendly, and that were safer to breathe in overall. After much trial-and-error, we launched our 100% soy wax candle collection, which really allowed us to expand. A year later, we released our horror movie candle collection, and that solidified (no candle-pun intended) that we had something real here. 

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Now, over 10,000 Etsy sales and 41,000 followers on Instagram (and climbing!) later...here we are. Owning a small business is like riding a roller coaster - you have highs, lows, doubts, fears, joy - it is so uncertain. But one thing that is for certain is we love what we do. We love creating, evolving, helping people, teaching, sharing knowledge, and providing products that we can genuinely feel good about and know we're putting so much love and care into everything we do. 

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We look back on this journey with pure gratitude in our hearts because it's all led us here. And now, in 2024, we opened up our very first BRICK-AND-MORTAR LOCATION! It's a retail store with all of our products, plus an event space for our events like moon circles, yoga, candle-making, and more. Thank you so much for coming along this wild ride with us.

 

We hope to see you soon! 

Meet The Team

Meet Our Practitioners

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Stores Carrying Our Products

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