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!

Shopping Bag !

Home scented-products are my favorites. I always love good-smelling products including perfume, body sprays, body wash, candles, room sprays, etc. I usually put up my beauty-related hauls in my other blog Two Thousand Things, so go on and click THIS LINK if you want to read my beauty and fashion themed blog.

Meanwhile, all the home-related hauls will be posted on this blog instead, such as these candles and home fragrances that I recently purchased during the last couple of months. Now, without further ado, here's my recent home-fragrance shopping bag ( + one non-scented haul which is a bunch of hair brushes ;p) :

 From Ikea Singapore:

Dofta Potpourri in Blue

Dofta Potpourri in Green

Sinnlig Candle in Strawberry

Tidsenlig Candle in White (narcissus?)

 From Ikea Indonesia:

Sinnlig Candle in Grey (spa?)

 From Bath & Body Works Indonesia:

White Barn Leaves Candle

White Barn Mahogany Teakwood Candle

This one below are not scented products but I just want to also feature them here because it is one of my recent purchases and because I love it so much :)

 Hair brushes from Forever 21

Aren't they too cute?!

(^_^)

 What did you purchased recently?

 See You on my next post!

[Review] : Candle-Lite Juicy Black Cherries Candle

One of my recent obsession is scented candles. A few years ago it was hard to find scented candles here in Jakarta, but nowadays they are getting easier to find (yay!). And that started my obsession ;)

Here is a re-published post from my other blog Two Thousand Things about one of my candle reviews. Hope you enjoy it!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I love trying to find sweet-smelling candles in the market because they are not easy to find here in my country. We don't really have much options regarding scented candles here. We don't even have a Bath & Body Works store (which I dream of getting their big candles of!). So every time I saw a scented candle with a proper packaging (and proper price ;p) I would mostly gonna buy it. 

Now I don't have that many scented-candle collection yet in my home but maybe someday I'll show you. But for now, here is one of my recent candle purchase:

 

Juicy Black Cherries candle from Candle-Lite. I got this from Ace Hardware where I mostly buy my candles from. This was around $3 or IDR 40,000-ish (if I'm not mistaken), and it comes in a 3.5 oz glass jar with plastic lid. The plastic lid has a small hole in it so that we can smell the candle inside.

 

This is the first time I tried Candle-Lite brand. I decided to try with this one because this smells good in the store. It smells like bubblegum to me, with a lot of sweet infusion from the black cherry aroma. Very sweet and a little bit uplifting, which I imagine would be nice for a family room or to accompany me working ;)

The color of the candle is gorgeous too, and this is one of the less expensive candle options in Ace Hardware ;p There are other scents from Candle-Lite that I also like at the store, so maybe I'll snatch it up later on.. Ace Hardware also has other brands such as the popular Yankee Candles which I haven't tried to burn yet because I only bought the small ones without containers, so I'm still looking for some kind of a container where I can keep it after I burn it to help the scent stays longer on the candle.

 

 

 This Candle-Lite Juicy Black Cherries is a lovely one and have a long burning time. I tried burning it for several hours each day, for two days straight, and it seems that it didn't reduced much, so this certainly has a longer burning time compared to common candles. It also burns evenly and solidifies evenly as well. So there's no deep hole under the wick (in the middle of the candle) after you burn it, unlike most common candles out there ;p

So that's what I like about Candle-Lite candles. They will keep an even shape after you burn them for hours. The scent is not that strong though, unless you burn it for hours and close the room. The scent is more like staying in the background. Overall, this candle is quite nice and I would buy it again in another scent ;)


Adios chicas!