Candles: Companies & Scents

I've written before about how much I love candles, and how particular I am about the various scents (no foodie smells, please!). I've recently purchased and been given a number of candles, so I thought I'd do a little post about the various brands and scents.

We'll start with Yankee Candle, which is one of the best known companies, at least in the south and on the east coast; now that I live on the other side of the country, I've found (at least in my immediate area) Yankee is not so well known. Well, they're Yankees, after all . . .

But Yankee Candle did open a store near us a few months ago, and we've since been in a couple times. And before that, having lived in Boston, I always had a few Yankee candles around the house.

Blue Hydrangea is one of my favorite scents, but last I looked, I couldn't find it. Yankee seems to be turning over their stock and scents quite rapidly. For example, I also really like Riding Mower, which is a stupid name, but the scent was fantastic as it reminded me of a childhood spent playing outdoors on a freshly shorn lawn. That seems to be gone now, too, replaced with something called Green Grass, which smells nice in the jar, but when I lit it, there was hardly any aroma to fill my office. You wouldn't have known I had a scented candle burning in there. Very weak.

I didn't like Pink Blush, either. But the new Lake Sunset is nice, sort of smells like you might imagine a Victorian doll shop would smell. (Oddly specific, but I used to work in a Victorian doll shop.) Cottage Breeze is a nice, fresh scent, too, but I understand that's also being discontinued.

For getting rid of (or at least overpowering) kitchen smells, we've found Black Coconut to work quite well.

Yankee is a familiar standby, but not necessarily the greatest of candle options (especially now that I can't get Blue Hydrangea). Still, I was more or less stuck with what I knew until a few months ago I was invited to a PartyLite candle party. Now, this is tricky because you have to order the products and then they are shipped to you . . . If you were to simply do it online, it would be a guessing game (or maybe you'd order based on color). At the party, the consultant had a kit with tiny samples so we could smell the various fragrances. One that I instantly fell in love with was Poinsettia & Musk—this was near the holidays, and this lovely red candle is not currently available. I also very much enjoyed Twilight Sea. And the Celestial Lights line based on zodiac signs is rather fun.

However, they are not perfect. I have to burn two Poinsettia & Musk votives to really be able to smell them, and the burning time is relatively short (they're gone in less than a full day). The big, two-wick Twilight Sea lasted longer and gave a stronger aroma. The Celestial Light candle I ordered definitely holds its own in terms of scent as well.

Finally, I was given a candle by a company I'd never heard of: Greenleaf. Worth linking to because it was a marvelous little votive, and I believe the scent was Classic Linen. Though this also lasted less than a full day, I adored the smell of it. And with the candle I was given a couple of Greenleaf's sachets, and they are fantastic. The only difficulty there was deciding which of my drawers to put them in. (Need to buy more; I can highly recommend Radiant Waters as a scent.)

I suppose the burning time issue might be more about the fact that I burn candles pretty much daily while working in my office. So when I say one can't smell the candles, that the aroma is weak, this is very true considering the candles are being burned in a closed environment. If you can't smell them there, you wouldn't be able to smell them much of anywhere.

If you know of any other candles/companies I should look into, I'd be happy to hear of them. Or if you can recommend another scent I might like, feel free to suggest it.