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Yankee Candle Beautiful Day
by zombieflesh
I love candles and have tons of holders scattered around my house so I can create the perfect romantic or haunting lighting effects. I particularly like fragranced candles as they create a lovely atmosphere, especially during the evenings when you want to feel all cosy. The Yankee Candle brand has a big fan following here on Dooyoo, and ... I am a relatively new recruit to the Yankee Candle fan club. I purchased a sampler set of votive candles in all sorts of different fragrances to get a good overview of the brand, and the one I've tried most recently is the "Beautiful Day" fragrance in a votive candle format.
The RRP for Yankee Candle sampler votives is around £1.75. I purchased my sampler set from yankeedoodle.co.uk, and the individual candles can also be found at many different high street retailers. Each fragrance is available in a variety of different forms: wax tart, sampler votive, tea lights, small jar, medium jar and large jar. The label design for Beautiful Day features a butterfly resting on some brightly coloured flowers. Neither the image nor the name of the candle really gives an insight as to what the candle will smell like, and I was a bit disappointed that it would have such a vague packaging design. The candle itself is made of a vibrant grassy green coloured wax which is nice as I tend to use these votives in a clear glass holder and it's fun to have the colourful wax showing through as it adds a decorative touch around my home.
Product description: "Yankee Candle Life is good with this happily enchanting mix of sunny fruits, pretty flowers and spicy herbs."
Upon lighting the candle it takes a short while for the wax to start melting and release the fragrance into the room. The candle gives off a good level of fragrance and I find that I can usually sense the fragrance around the room after just 20 minutes of the candle being lit. It stays burning at a steady rate and gives off an even amount of fragrance when in use, so it does not become too strong or overpowering even after a few hours of it being lit. Although the description says that the scent includes a mix of fruit, flowers and spicy herbs, I could only pick up on a generic floral fragrance and it did not seem to have much depth or variety. The floral scent was fresh and outdoorsy, and did help to give my rooms a nice clean smell that helped to lift any staleness from the air, and also worked to mask the usual lingering pet smells.
The sampler votives are rather small and measure in at about 2" tall, but despite their size they still claim to give around 15-20 hours of burning time. When using this candle I kept it burning for at least 3 hours at a time on each use, so that the wax melted evenly and I'm not left with wasted leftover bits that get stuck against the edges of the glass holder and won't melt down. I managed to get just about spot on 15 hours of use from this candle, which puts it at the lower end of the expected burn time, but this still a pretty good performance. I would strongly recommend purchasing a specific votive sized candle holder if you intend on using Yankee Candles' sampler sized candles. I have tried one previously in an ordinary, larger candle holder and the sampler completely lost its shape and puddled away into an un-useable mess. Having a votive holder means that the sampler candle slips in neatly and sits close to the sides, which helps it to maintain its structural integrity while burning.
Overall this was not a bad candle, it gave off a light and fresh floral scent and I liked the nice bright green colour of the wax. That said, I'm not the biggest fan of flowery fragrances so I don't think the fragrance was anything special and I wouldn't actively seek to purchase it again. The candle itself is typical of Yankee Candle's high quality standards and burned well giving an even melt and lasting for the stated burning time. Read the complete review |
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Comfort Exhil Strawberry and Lily Kiss
by MsTricia
Since having my daughter I had always been really cautious when it came to washing clothes - ensuring her clothes were always washed separately and ours washed with different products to hers. As a newborn I was always advised that Fairy Non-Bio was ideal and religiously stuck to this. Being quite lazy I always just ended up using this ... for my clothes too but recently I decided I quite like nice smelling fabric conditioners and miss using these so started using a few different ones other than Fairy. I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I got a £40 Tesco voucher so I of course wanted to take full advantage. I found this 1.2 litre bottle of Comfort Strawberry and Lily Kiss on offer for £2 and although I hadn't used it before it sounded interesting so I opened it in store to get a whiff and was greeted by a lovely aroma of strawberry sweet scent so shoved it my basket and happily took it home.
The comfort comes in a nicely shaped bottle with a lovely designed label all the way around in pink design with flowers and a matching fuschia pink lid. The bottle does not have an easy to pour spout as the shape of the lid suggested to me but nonetheless it is still really easy to use.
As I mentioned before, as soon as I opened the lid the strong sweet, fruity smell wafts out which is not overpowering but smells really delicious and is almost tempting to drink! It looks like a really thick, lovely fabric conditioner which is a nice pinkish colour. It is to be poured straight into the washing machine and goes straight to work. There is no strict guideline of how much to pour out, the bottle just recommends that this can be used for 34 washes. Personally I pour probably three tablespoons out as I don't want too much and this allows me to make it last really long. With this in mind, I think this is a good amount as this leaves just the right amount of scent lingering in my clothes so it is not too sickly or sweet.
I have suffered eczema in the past and so I am usually quite conscious of what delicate products I use on my skin but I have not suffered any adverse effects so I have found this gentle and not in any way irritable. I am still quite conscious not to use any new products on my daughters skin as I am too much of a worry-munch to use something other than Fairy Non-Bio for washing her clothes!
I have loved using this fabric conditioner, especially on my bed sheets as once dry the smell is still lingering and getting into bed it smells all warm and sweet and makes bed time that much more cosy! This is a really good quality fabric conditioner that smells lovely, and when my clothes dry around the home it smells gorgeous and I get loads of compliments when out that my clothes even smell nice! I would definitely recommend this fabric conditioner and have totally fallen in love with it so would definitely recommend it in future and will buy it again, hopefully be even better if it's still on offer! Read the complete review |
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Yankee Candle Waikiki Melon Sampler
by k2705
I am reviewing a wax tart in this fragrance not the candle Dooyoo are showing.
Keeping my home smelling nice is very important to me, and my favourite way to do this is by using scented candles or wax tarts. I love the way the atmosphere can be changed depending on the fragrance of scented wax. It can create a bright fresh ... clean feel to a room or a warm cosy romantic atmosphere.
I have recently been trying some of the new fragrances from Yankee that I haven't used before, one of which is Waikiki Melon. I usually prefer floral scents but after giving this one a quick sniff in a department store I thought it smelt so fruity and fresh that I picked one up.
Wax Tarts are simple little discs of oily wax without a wick, I always think they feel slightly oily rather than waxy, they measure approximately 6cm's x 1.5cm's and cost round about £1.00 - £1.20 depending on where you buy them from which I think is pretty good value for money considering how many hours fragrance they give you. . They have a fluted edge and do look just like a little tart. In my opinion Yankee make the best wax tarts and these are the ones I always use.
The tart comes wrapped tightly in clear cellophane allowing you to see the yellow coloured wax, the wax tart has a label stuck to the front which shows a small picture that usually depicts the fragrance of the wax, Waikiki Melon shows a beautifully carved melon along with some other fruit.
You can usually get a good idea of what the wax tart is going to smell by just by smelling the wrapper, handy of you are in a shop and not too sure if you like the sound if it or if like me the colour of the wax puts you off.
Yankees official description of this is:-
" Like a fresh, newly sliced melon, this scented candle spreads a sweet scent with a touch of orange oil."
To use a wax tart you do need an oil burner and an unscented tea light, its just a case of popping the unwrapped wax tart into the burner and lighting the tea light below it so it melts the wax tart. Once lit it usually doesn't take long before the oily wax is starting to melt and the fragrance filters around the room, however with Waikiki Melon I found the fragrance took a little longer to build.
Once the aroma got going my room was filled with a delicious fresh fruity smell that was very obviously melon, despite being very fruity and fresh there was also a nice sweetness to the fragrance too, this I'm assuming was the orange oil coming through, as well as sweetness it also added a nice citrus element.
I always melt my wax tarts for a couple of hours at a time, I find the fragrance lingers for a long while after the wax has solidified and this in my opinion is the best way to get the best value from the tart, we could still smell this after the burner had gone out but I have to say not for as long as others I have tried.
Yankee state their wax tarts will give you up to 8 hours fragrance and on the whole I agree. I just leave the set wax in the burner dish ready to re melt the next day. Once the wax has run out of fragrance I leave it to set then remove the wax from the dish.
You can melt the wax tarts whole, break them in half or even mix them to create your own fragrances. Personally I don't mix mine I just melt the tart whole without mixing fragrances, in my opinion Yankee mix the fragrances perfectly well. Yankee use only natural ingredients in their scented wax and their fragrances do really smell genuine.
Yankee wax tarts can be found in many independent shops and also some major department stores as well as many online stores such as Amazon UK and Yankee Direct. They are great value for money and a lovely way to fragrance your home for a small amount of money, also a good way to try different fragrances before you spend more on a larger candle jar which are quite a lot of money to lay out if you then decide you don't really like the smell. .
All in all I really liked Waikiki Melon despite absolutely hating the taste of melon but this was so fruity and fresh and left my home smelling clean and summery. With my home being open plan I can smell this all through downstairs and also upstairs. I would personally say this was a daytime fragrance, in my opinion its not a warm enough fragrance for evenings.
If like me you are a fan of scented wax then I would definitely recommend trying this one, its not as strong as others I've tried but the fragrance is gorgeous. . Read the complete review |