Stacey McClure never imagined she’d have a career in candles. What began as a hobby to fill the long, uncertain days of the pandemic has blossomed into Cicada Candles, a cozy shop in Oro Valley and a thriving local business.
“I just love having a candle, like the ambience, the smell, I love fragrance,” McClure said. “Especially now that I know that there’s good candles and bad candles, I love making something beautiful and something that’s clean that people can have in their home.”
Her love for the cozy ambiance of candles quickly turned into a deeper passion for creating high-quality, clean-burning products.
“I realized how bad candles are at the store, so that kind of prompted me to really want to research clean ingredients,” she said. “And then I thought it would be very cool if I could make a candle that smelled like the desert. And then we decided to sell them, and it kind of took off like crazy.”
After creating her first candle, McClure was inspired to explore other scents that reflected the desert’s essence, from cactus blossoms to prickly pears—iconic fragrances tied to her childhood in the Sonoran Desert.
McClure has always loved the scent of creosote, a fragrance that captures the rare beauty of Tucson’s monsoon season. As a child, she would collect creosote branches in water to preserve its rain-like aroma.
Her first attempt to recreate the scent in a candle failed, but after trial and error and lots of experimenting, she finally perfected a fragrance that embodies the essence of the desert. McClure grew up near Wickenburg, Ariz., although most of her extended family lived in Tucson during her childhood, and the Sonoran Desert reminds her of home.
“The Sonoran Desert has a very iconic scent to it when it’s raining. And I feel like people from Arizona think it’s very nostalgic, and it’s that creosote, it’s woody, it’s earthy,” she said.
Cicada uses a custom coconut-soy wax blend, developed after finding soy burned unevenly and coconut wax was too soft. Her candles feature clean-burning cotton wicks and a mix of essential oils and phthalate-free fragrance oils, avoiding the harmful additives found in many commercial candles.
“I wanted something safe and beautiful for people to enjoy in their homes,” she said.
Along with the best selling monsoon scent, another fan favorite is Memory Five, a cactus blossom fragrance that has become a top seller.
McClure decided to name each candle a numbered memory.
Her Monsoon candle, labeled as Memory One, is one of several candles featured in a special collaboration with the University of Arizona. In July, the UA launched Old Main Mercado, a program partnering with Tucson businesses to create unique branded products. Inspired by their Wildcat beer collaboration with Pueblo Vida Brewing, the initiative now includes Los Gatos Wildcat Sauce from Sí Charro and now the line of scented candles from Cicada Candles.
Cicada Candles is creating a set of four exclusive scents for the University of Arizona, including a Monsoon fragrance called Memory 1885, inspired by the year the school was founded. Other scents will feature agave for the university’s gardens, orange blossoms from the campus’ iconic orange trees, and a fresh grass scent evoking the campus mall. The production is set to begin in 2025.
“I love that I get to create whatever I want,” McClure said. “I think it’s the most magical thing. Don’t get me wrong, owning your own business is very stressful. I’m stressed out all the time during this time of year. I live at the studio, but I absolutely love creating stuff that people love. When they tell you how much they like your products, it brings you joy because you work so hard to make something that’s beautiful and clean and wonderful for their home or to share with someone else.”
Rachel Walker, a Tucson resident wrote: “These candles are so unique to Arizona smells and memories, not to mention you will never meet a business owner as friendly and down-to-earth! I will never buy a store bought candle again!”
Cicada Candles is located at 11061 N. Oracle Rd., Suite 150 in Oro Valley.
Arizona Sonoran News is a news service of the University of Arizona School of Journalism.
