**Introduction**

In my last Yankee Candle review I mentioned that some retailers promote a selection of the choices available as 'Fragrances of the Month' and often discount the products they include in each months promotion. Along with Strawberry Buttercream (see my last review) - the subject of this review; Cherry Blossom were February's choices available at the shop we buy our Yankee products from and at 83p for a single wax tart instead of the usual £1.10 I picked up a couple of these to see what they were like.

If you have ever read my reviews before you will know by now that both my wife and myself are big fans of Yankee Candles and their range of true-to-life, authentic fragrances and use these as a way of keeping our home smelling pleasant and for creating a warm atmosphere. We tend to buy either the wax tart or votive variations from Yankee as these are the most economical and use them as an introduction to the scent, if we discover something which we particularly like then we will re-buy the fragrance but in one of the larger, more expensive glass-jarred Housewarmer candles which can cost up to £18.00. For just 83p I thought Cherry Blossom wouldn't be an expensive mistake should it not live up to our expectations and as usual the wrapper was removed from the wax tart, it was placed in the well of our tart burner and melted from beneath by means of a tea light.

So what do I think?

**Cherry Blossom**

As shown in the supplied picture Cherry Blossom is mid-pink in colour and features an illustration of a sprig of the flower it is supposed to represent on the cellophaned wrapper's sticker. I have to admit to making an assumption with this one as I expected it to have a Cherry fragrance to it, I wasn't aware that Cherry Blossom was actually a flower and as such once the wax tart began to melt in our tart burner I was mystified as to why there was a subtle, floral aroma emanating from the wax. A quick Google search later informed me that the flower could be found on the Cherry tree 'Sakura' and was native to the Asian countries of China, Japan and Korea. Suitably educated but still none the wiser of how it was supposed to smell I waited the usual 10 minutes to allow the majority of the wax to take on a liquid form and re-evaluated the aroma it was releasing.

Yankee themselves claim that Cherry Blossom is "vibrantly distinctive" and contains notes of sandalwood and bergamot however to my uneducated nostrils all I could detect was a faint whiff of something 'flowery'. Rather than being either vibrant or distinctive I found this one to be weak and compared to other Yankee Candle choices I thought this one was rather poor. The main problem with it is that it just doesnt smell of anything in particular, I couldn't detect any specific aromas other than a lightly floral, nondescript odour and frankly I was disappointed with "Cherry Blossom". At times in the past I often found the floral/flowery choices from Yankee to be quite overpowering so I do tend to avoid choosing them now as I prefer the sweeter, fruitier scents that are available and although Cherry Blossom could be classed as a floral scent and therefore one that I would normally avoid with this one it is so weak that it could never be described as cloying.

Yankee claim that a wax tart can give off up to 8 hours worth of fragrance from a single tart and in some cases this is absolutely true, Cherry Blossom doesn't to be honest and after a maximum of 3 hours any faint floral aroma was gone from the wax and left in its place was just a well of liquid wax. Out of the dozens of wax tarts I have bought in the past this one was perhaps the most disappointing and had this been the first ever product of Yankee's that I bought I doubt I would have been able to see just why so many people recommend or buy their products. Fortunately this isn't the first wax tart I have bought and I'm now used to some fragrances being better than others, as mentioned in my opening paragraph we tend to buy these as an introduction to scents they are supposed to represent and although Cherry Blossom was a disappointment for me personally at least I only paid 83p to find this out for myself.

**Overall**

As with all products in the Yankee range "Cherry Blossom" is available to buy either on-line at amazon or yankeedoodle.co.uk and the company's high street presence seems to be increasing with B&Q, Clinton Cards and other well known shops stocking a selection of the range. Wax tarts tend to retail for around £1.00 - £1.10 depending where you buy them from and some retailers will offer a selection of the range at a reduced, promotional price so it's worth looking around at what is on offer from different places. In case it isn't clear from my review a wax tart isn't the same as a traditional candle in the sense that it doesn't have a wick and its not burnt, instead a wax tart is a flat, fluted piece of wax which is circular in shape and measures approximately 2 inches in diameter, it is placed into a tart burner and then melted from underneath. Fragrance and essential oils are impregnated into the wax itself and once melted it releases its aroma into the air surrounding the burner itself, we have a dog at home and so often find that there are 'doggy smells' which linger, aerosol air fresheners lose their smell straight after being sprayed so we use wax tarts as a way of preventing unpleasant smells from being too obvious and find that on the whole the products from Yankee Candle are usually excellent in making our surroundings a nicer place to live.

In conclusion then, I can't really recommend "Cherry Blossom" in any variety to anyone else for all the reasons mentioned in this review, so as far as this one is concerned it gets a measly 2 stars and that's only because the wax tart varieties are inexpensive. I certainly wouldn't buy this one again in any format, avoid this one would be my advice unless you like the smell of non-descript flowers that are so subtle they have little aroma to them, there are some excellent choices available from Yankee but unfortunately this isn't one of them.

Overall: Poor.