Nicole Parker and Annette Whiteman are the co-owners of Heavenly Scents Crystals. Photos: Erin Hee.
A chance encounter with a candlemaker led to Wagga having its own crystal shop with ultraviolet (UV) crystals that glow in the dark, and the option to customise a Labrador or Labubu-shaped crystal.
Annette Whiteman was buying baby powder candles from Nicole Parker when they realised candles and crystals “work really well together”, so they spent the past two years building Heavenly Scents Crystals.
There was already a well-established crystal shop in Albury, prompting Ms Whiteman to make the move to Wagga after learning of the previous crystal shop’s closure. Ms Parker had already been living in Wagga for around seven years at that point.
The store carries a wide range of handmade and custom items, from candles, bath bombs (with toys inside to encourage your little ones to take a bath) and accessories to customisable crystal carving services.
The owners work with a Queensland-based carver who will source and produce whatever shape you desire.
“They want a Labrador? He can make that; all he needs is pictures from each angle,” Ms Whiteman said. “He’s not 100 per cent [accurate], but he’s pretty close.”
Ms Parker joked that her co-owner always used Labradors as an example, but there was also a range of examples in the shop, including Labubu, Pokemon and Hello Kitty.
Ms Whiteman said their UV room was easily their favourite part of the store. UV crystals are naturally formed materials that react to UV light in the dark, which requires a UV torch. It won’t glow and will just look like regular crystals otherwise.
One of their biggest challenges when setting up their store was creating a room that was dark enough to showcase the UV crystals’ glow-in-the-dark properties, but also safe for people to enter.
“We have a UV room, which is different to most crystal shops because they don’t utilise UV in their crystals,” Ms Whiteman said.
“You’ve got to be really careful with it because the sun can cause issues.”
Obtaining those lights was also an issue as they use a special filtration system with limited sizing.
Previously, they were in Sturt Mall but decided to move to Tompson Street as it’s more spacious and allows them to set up a black room to display their UV range.
Trying to turn a sushi bar into a crystal shop was “not fun”.
“It’s a lot quieter because it’s just off the main street, and not in a shopping centre, but we do have our regulars,” Ms Whiteman said.
“Over at [Sturt Mall], it was utilising how the shop was laid out. So we had to work with the sushi bar.”
There were some hiccups while designing their new store off the main street, but they pulled through; they built everything from scratch but had some help from an electrician and their “tall guy”.
“Most of it was done just by us two,” Ms Whiteman said. “We had this really good friend, Luke. He was our tall guy and did the tall stuff.”
These bath bombs have toys in them to encourage your children to take baths.
Ms Parker, who has been making soaps and candles for more than 10 years, uses natural elements such as goats’ milk and avoids “nasty ingredients” such as mica, minerals that are often used in beauty products because of their shimmering properties.
“The colours are all natural and don’t stay in your bath,” she said.
The pair plans to expand the store to include apothecary services, but it “could be six months down the track” as they’re still in the research and planning phase.
Heavenly Scents Crystals can be found at 43 Tompson Street and is open from 9 am to 5:30 pm on Mondays through Wednesdays and Fridays, 9 am to 7 pm on Thursdays, and 10 am to 3 pm on Sundays.
Keep up with the shop on Facebook.
