Friday, August 22, 2014

Fragrance Friday

I've taken to burning candles pretty much continuously since my therapist recommended it as a way to remember my friends who have died. I feel like I should review them, because there's not a lot of candle scent reviews online, but I don't really want to. I purchased the candles in memoriam and very actively didn't try to intellectualize how they smelled. My "goal", if one can call it that, is to find a scent that captures the spirits as I knew them, so even candles that I like the scent of (like Muscari) get only a mediocre response in that regard. That being said, here are some extremely brief summaries of some of the ones I've tried. Maybe they'll help someone. I burned the votive candles of all of these except for Suede Blanc, which was a 2 wick metallo candle; the pictures for each reflect that.

Smells like dude cologne or aftershave. It's fine, it's just...not what I was hoping for. The denizens of the internet love it, though. Good throw.

Pleasantly woody, albeit with a slight soap note, but the votive candle has pathetic throw. Maybe bigger size would be better.
Rose with citrus notes. Really pretty, fantastic throw. My cousin walked in the house after this had been burning for an hour and exclaimed, "It smells just like Granny!", referring to our great-grandmother's love of roses.
White-leaning floral with subtle musk. Decent throw. More feminine than I was expecting, wish it were heavier on the musk.
Their description is pretty accurate; it's apricot + florals. Moderate throw, quite nice, but not as complex as I might like.
Sunny woods and slight citrus; lighter than that makes it sound. Mild throw in the votive, bigger size might help embiggen the smell.

Voluspa candles are nice because they take no effort to make burn nicely, save wick trimming, and they last a nice long time. I order the votives from Beauty.com (they're not available from Nordstrom online, unfortunately; the links above each picture go to the appropriate page), and once I've finished trying all the ones that sound intriguing, I'll switch to the larger glass jars. I like ones that come in reusable containers, and have a slowly growing stash of votives/jars that need to be de-waxed and transformed into something else (brush holders, perhaps!). The votives are $9 for 3 oz and burn ~25 hours; the 2 wick tins (not as nicely reusable) are $16 for 11 oz and burn 50 hours.
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