Tina Rocca of Pure Plant Home: Wellness Warrior

Tina Rocca is the founder of Pure Plant Home. She creates aromatherapy candles with real essential oils. She's passionate about non-toxic products and their impact on our health.

I'm super excited to meet you, Tina. Welcome. Thank you, Renee, for inviting me. I'm happy to have a platform to share information and knowledge to help educate people, especially women, about what they're using, what these ingredients mean, and what they can do to your health. What is clean, what is non-toxic, and what is sustainable because there's a lot of misinformation.

You've been passionate about wellness since childhood. How did that early interest shape your journey to creating Pure Plant Home? I've always been a wellness Warrior, starting way back in my childhood. My grandparents lived with us when I was a child, and they were both quite sick. My grandfather also smoked in the house a lot. I spent all my time outdoors playing sports in the street because I didn't want to be in the house. I always thought, "If it's going in his lungs, then it's going in my lungs." It was just common sense; I knew it felt harmful. I didn't want to breathe in what he was breathing out. I became a vegetarian at ten because I was convinced that what we eat has a huge impact on our health. This early awareness of what we put into our bodies and how it affects us set the stage for everything I've done since, including creating Pure Plant Home.

You've mentioned the confusion around what's truly non-toxic and sustainable. How do you navigate that in your business? It's really overwhelming for people. They stand in the aisles at Sephora or CVS, trying to make sense of ingredient lists, and it's almost impossible without a deep understanding of where those ingredients come from. For me, it's all about transparency. I've always been driven by a need to know what's really in the products we use. When I started making my own products—starting with essential oils in high school—I knew I had to go straight to the source. That's why I've built relationships with growers and suppliers over decades. I need to know exactly what's in my candles, where it comes from, and how it's produced. I refuse to compromise on that.

Your candles are known for their unique use of coconut wax. Can you tell us more about that choice? I'm particularly proud of our proprietary blend of coconut wax. It's not the easiest wax to work with, especially if you want to keep it 100% pure without additives. Most other "coconut" candles out there aren't just coconut—they mix it with paraffin or soy to harden it. But I didn't want that. I wanted a truly clean-burning candle, so I stuck with it, even though it was challenging. The key was finding the right balance to make the coconut wax stable without compromising the integrity of the essential oils. That's why our candles smell so pure and burn so clean. We can only put a certain percentage of essential oils in because the candle gets too soft and starts to fall apart.

How do you choose the essential oils for your candles, like the wildcrafted French lavender? I'm a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to essential oils. It's like being a wine enthusiast—you don't settle for just any wine, and I don't settle for just any oil. I spent years developing my nose and my intuition for what makes a truly exceptional oil. With the wildcrafted French lavender, for example, I went through hundreds of samples before finding the right one. It's about more than just the scent; it's about how the oil interacts with the wax, how it burns, and what kind of energy it brings into a space.

For the French Lavender Aromatherapy Coconut Wax Candle, the lavender is from a region in France that doesn't use any pesticides—it's truly wildcrafted, and you can smell the difference. It is one of the finest wildcrafted French lavenders and I chose it specifically to be in this candle.

You've had some stressful experiences growing your business. Can you describe the most stressful part of it and how you deal with it? The most stressful for me is the financial stuff because, having a business, you're constantly paying for things, like the ingredients and the packaging. Essential oils cost a fortune. The whole business part of the equation is very hard and stressful. I would rather be the person in the background making the products, figuring out our next blend, making a new body oil, or doing something else. Exercise has been my therapy my whole life. So when anything goes wrong, even when everything goes right, it doesn't matter. I always exercise a lot. My kids tease me. They say, "You should start an Instagram for how to stay fit over 60!"

You've faced some significant challenges in your career, especially as a female founder. How have you managed those? Being a woman in business is never easy, and it's something I've had to deal with from the start. In the beginning, I had my ex-husband as a business partner. He was this tough, no-nonsense guy who acted as a buffer for me. But when we divorced, I had to step up and do it all on my own, and that's when I really felt the challenges. There's still a lot of bias out there. People don't always take you seriously as a woman, especially in industries dominated by men. But I've always believed in leading with kindness and integrity. It's hard, and sometimes I wish I had a strong male partner again to help navigate those challenging business waters, but I've learned to trust myself and my instincts. In this world, they see that as a weakness if you're not tough enough or too kind. But I'm going to be kind because I don't care what anybody thinks. I'm doing it for me. I'm not doing it for anyone. I'm how I am because it makes me happy. I won't be mean to anyone just because that's how men want to run their businesses. If someone makes a mistake, I won't yell and ask why you did that. I'm going to say we'll do better next time. We learn from our mistakes. I have a very different way of thinking and operating and caring for people, and I'm hoping that someday in the future, that is what businesses and big business will start to adopt.

What's next for Pure Plant Home? What are you most excited about? I'm really excited to support my younger daughter's brand, Meaningful Mantras, as it grows. She's been inspired by our family's commitment to health, and it's wonderful to see her take that forward. As for Pure Plant Home, I'm still as passionate as ever about creating clean, beautiful products. I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I might even add some fitness tips to our Instagram—I've been a fitness enthusiast all my life, and I think it would be fun to share that with our community.

Find the French Lavender Aromatherapy Coconut Wax Candle and other Pure Plant Home products in this collection on Here I Am.

This interview has been edited and condensed from my conversation with Tina Rocca.