Woohoo, about to start on my Yankee Candle layered Summer Trio (Summer Scoop, Merry Marshmallow, and Salted Caramel layered),
I just wish these came in the full-sized 22 oz tumblers rather than these 10 oz jars which cost a rather ridiculous SGD$33.90. It also irks me that you can get 4 large jars for US$50 in the US and by the time they make it here, they cost over $40 per jar. And don't even get me started on Bath & Body Works, because the mark-up is even worse.
I still love them and will buy from time to time when there are sales. In fact I've just finished my large jar of Ginger Dusk, and a small jam jar of BBW's Red Velvet Cupcake (which was a waste of money because had almost no throw, sadly).
I love bakery scents in general though, and the bakery scent selection in Singapore is woefully puny most of the time because the East Asian market in general does not take well to "heavy", sweet scents. We're more partial to floral, fruity and cologne-y fresh scents.
So if you walk into Yankee, you might find a few things like Waffle Cone, Vanilla Frosted Cupcake, and Red Velvet Cake. Even when the seasonal collections come in, you will often find that they leave out the bakery and foody Fall candles which are bestsellers in the West.
So my personal stash is FILLED with bakery treats that I either ship in from - or purchase on trips to - the US.
One of my cheap n cheerful favorites is Better Homes & Gardens wax cubes from Walmart. I came home with a whole tray of these last year. And Candied Caramel Apple is one I was melting earlier today. This one's a Fall 2014 limited edition release, and it's just gorgeous.
If you're afraid of heavy, sticky, baked fruit smells, don't worry. The fresh apple is actually pretty strong, and the caramel is in the background. After a few hours, when the fresh notes start to weaken, you start getting more of a apple-pie filling smell as the caramel tones come out more and the tart freshness of the apple fades a bit.
These wax cubes are so cheap (around US$2 per pack) and so strong that I only need a single cube under my 25W heated lamp to scent up half my apartment. It's warm in Singapore, and my apartment isn't huge, so I really never throw in too much wax or it can get quite overpowering.
I made the mistake of popping in half a Honey Rolls grubby tart from Front Porch the other night (about 0.5oz weight or less) and it was almost cloying in the humid heat. I had to remove it from under the lamp and throw it out after a couple of hours.
I have to say this is a good scent though. It's a very tart sweet honey; quite realistic. (I can't stand food notes that smell fake.) But the honey is VERY sweet, so it got to be a bit too much after awhile. I had ordered hoping the "rolls" part of the scent would be more present, but it was just overpowered by the sweet tangy honey once heated.
Another online vendor I enjoy is Closet Full of Wax. I was digging around in my stash and realized I had an old unmelted bag of Mango Cream Filled Twinkies. I'd ordered because I've never eaten (much less smelt) Twinkies, although I can more or less imagine how yellow cake and sweet cream filling would smell. So I was curious to see if this would smell good.
As usual, I have to chop up my chunks into smaller pieces to melt in controlled dozes, but this one has quite a soft throw compared to most of my vendor tarts. I have to go quite close (about 2 feet away) to smell it.
It's not a bad smell, but somehow it reminds me more of buttery yellow cake with baked peaches on top, than mango.
I much preferred the mixed fragrance chunk tart in Almond Marzipan - Glazed Cinnamon Donut - Vanilla Bean Noel - Pink Sugar. (Quite a mouthful.) The strongest scent in this is Vanilla Bean Noel, although there's a buttery toasty nuttiness that makes it smell like cookies.
I think I only have the one chunk of this because I wasn't sure if I would like Marzipan. Almond is quite an acquired taste, and I prefer nutty almond notes to the medicinal marzipan/extract scents. So without having smelt this, I didn't dare order more.
Well, good news for me. This is quite a nutty marzipan. Or maybe that's just the combination of all those vanilla-heavy notes with it. I dropped only about 1/6 of the 3-4oz size chunk in, and that was more than enough because this thing throws like mad. My living room smelt like a bakery.
Yum.
