Home-Living: Yankee Candle - Home Sweet Home & Paradise Spice Review

I love scented candles because I basically love fragrances. 

Places to buy candles if you live in Jakarta : Ace Hardware for Yankee candles and a few other brands, Bath & Body Works, and Informa (for a range of different brands of candles). 

A long time ago I bought these three candles from Ace Hardware including a set of candle holders for my votive candles. I bought two Yankee Candles in Home Sweet Home and Paradise Spice (both in the votive size), and also a Colonial Candle in Winter Woods.

I also bought a set of votive candle holders with "city" designs on the front that looks like this :

I really like the candle holders because it matches my living room theme which is grey and black :) I also picked up the Home Sweet Home and Paradise Spice specifically for my kitchen because I need something to get rid of the smell when I'm cooking, and to keep my kitchen smells fresh all the time. 

The colonial candle is my first time trying it. I picked the Winter Woods scent because woodsy notes are my favorite and because hubby loves it too when he sniffed it at the store.

I will write an in-depth review of the Colonial Winter Woods candle on another post, meanwhile I will write the review for both the Yankee candles in this post :)

First up, the Home Sweet Home candle. 

I have high hopes for Yankee candles but this one just didn't make it to my "Recommendation" list. I bought a few of Yankee candles in votive size before, and most of them are a success. But this one just doesn't smells strong at all. 

I mean, this hardly has no scent trail whatsoever, even if I burned it for hours. The scent is too weak even for a small room. Even when I'm sitting next to it I wouldn't be able to smell it except for a very very faint trail of scent. Maybe it needs a bigger size of this candle to fragrance a small room.

According to the website, the Home Sweet Home scent describes as: A heartwarming blend of cinnamon, baking spices, and a hint of freshly poured tea. 

When it's not lit, you can actually smell the scent of cinnamon mixed with spices when you sniff the candle. That's why I bought it, when I sniffed it at the store I thought it's a nice scent for my kitchen. But it turns out that when the candle is lit, the scent throw is not as strong as when it's not lit. I don't think I would buy this one again or maybe I would buy a bigger version of this scent instead.

Now on to Paradise Spice. 

The website describes this scent as: An exotic island treasure; perfectly ripe banana and creamy vanilla, unexpectedly spiced with prized cinnamon and cloves. 

My thought when I sniffed the candle is: cinnamon meets vanilla ! I like cinnamon and vanilla scent so this candle fits my category, and that's why I bought it at the first place. I prefer this type of scents for kitchen or dining room area because I think cinnamon-based candle is perfect for dining/kitchen area.

Unlike the Home Sweet Home candle, this one has an "OK" scent throw. I can smell light trail of scents from this candle when lit up for a few hours. Although it doesn't fall into the "strong scent" category but this is alright for a smaller room. 

The website says that it's better if you use a candle holder that fits the candle entirely or a holder that hugs the candle, so you will receive a better scent throw. But I don't have one of those, and the "city" candle holder that I'm using is a little bit bigger than the candle as you can see from the photo above.

A little tips for lighting votive candles:

1. If you use a holder that's a little bit bigger than the votive (like mine above), pour a tiny little bit of water inside the holder before you put the votive and lit them. This way, it would be  easier to "pop" the candle once you finished burning it.
2. Sometimes you find it hard to detach the candle out of your holder especially when your candle melts around and fills the gap between the candle and the holder. What I usually do is put it in the freezer for a couple of hours and then all you have to do is just give it a good "pop" / push from the bottom of the holder upside down, and the candle should "pop" easily.

What's your favorite candle right now?

Happy Reading!