Rediscover home fragrances with Soph’s beach house | Digital Exclusives

Soph’s Beach House is a local brand built on fragrance, slow living and feeling at home on the coast.

Some brands are born from a business plan. Soph’s Beach House started as something much more personal: a Wilmington creative who missed making things with her hands. 

Sophia Wentz launched Soph’s Beach House in the summer of 2023. She has always been the kind of person who is happiest with a project on the table — crafting, painting and building something from scratch.

After college, she started a videography business, but even with her camera work, she could not shake what she missed the most: the tactile, hands-on process of making art. 

After graduating from UNC Wilmington in 2022 with a major in studio art, Wentz’s main creative outlet was painting. The quiet, hands-on process of creating something from scratch healed something in her through each painting.

From there, she started looking for smaller projects she could make and share more regularly. That’s when she discovered candle making. 

Wentz has always found her greatest inspiration near the water, especially Wrightsville Beach’s slower pace, soft routines and feeling of coming home.

She wanted to capture that in something people could bring into their own space. The idea was simple: create coastal pieces that feel like “little bits of home.”

Her first goal was fragrance. Wentz set out to develop a beach-house scent, one that did not smell like a “novelty ocean candle,” but like your very own beach house.

After plenty of trial and error, she landed on a favorite: Sea Salt and Santal, the first signature scent for Soph’s Beach House candles.

The candles themselves are minimal and coastal, designed to look like part of your decor instead of something you hide on a shelf. Behind that clean look is a lot of testing and months of mixing waxes, experimenting with wicks and dialing in a burn that matched the vibe she was chasing.

Just as important, Wentz wanted her products to be clean and nontoxic, something you can light in your home and feel good about it. 

When it came time to sell, she started where many local makers do: Instagram. 

Wentz created an account for the brand, shared it on her personal page and listed her first products on Etsy. The beginning was a slow build, until it wasn’t.

Her first scent sold well, and she credits a huge part of that momentum to Wilmington’s small business community. 

“Everyone was so supportive,” Wentz says.

That early encouragement helped kickstart what would become a steady calendar of pop-ups. 

About six months into making candles, Wentz did her first market and was surprised that she loved not just selling, but also meeting people. Talking face-to-face, telling the story behind the scents and connecting with customers who genuinely wanted to support a local brand lit her up, and she started booking more markets. 

By 2024 Soph’s Beach House felt established.

Wentz began taking the brand more seriously, launching six scents that year and building a clearer vision for what she wants the business to be: an intentional lifestyle brand that encourages and invites people to slow down. 

Working at Tusc in Mayfaire, she drew inspiration from the women entrepreneurs around her, and it led to a big moment when her boss invited her to stock Soph’s Beach House candles in the shop.

Wentz was honored, and it became another reminder why local support is so important. 

Wentz did not stop at candles. In the summer of 2025 she expanded Soph’s Beach House into room and linen sprays, simply because she wanted to stay creative and keep trying new things. 

“Having my own business gives me freedom to try anything,” she says.

That sense of possibility is part of what makes Soph’s Beach House feel so personal.

For Wentz, it really comes down to bringing a little joy to the Wrightsville Beach and Wilmington communities, whether that comes from someone finding their signature scent, feeling good about the clean ingredients or simply slowing down and lighting a candle as a part of their everyday routine. 

When Wentz is not pouring candles or packing orders, she does what a lot of locals do — walks the Loop, bikes, reads on the beach for hours and hunts down the next great coffee. Her go-tos include Social Coffee and Casa Blanca.

As for what’s next, Wentz’s goals stretch beyond fragrance. She would love to expand into coastal paintings and home decor, anything that creates a coastal home. 

To shop Soph’s Beach House, you can find the brand online and follow along on Instagram for pop-up announcements, because in a community like this, the best finds are often the ones you stumble into on a rainy day market.