Unfortunately, Yankee Candle seem to be in the habit of waiting until I find a fragrance that I absolutely adore and then discontinuing it! It has happened with most of my favourites now and the latest casualty was Island Spa. Luckily for me, however, my local garden centre was having a big sale and a couple of weekends ago I managed to stock up with several tarts for the bargain price of just 50p each, including 4 Island Spa. I rummaged and rummaged in their sale basket but alas, only four were in there.

Everybody on Dooyoo by now knows all about Yankee Candle so I won't bore you with more information about the company (I've done a couple of other reviews if you want to read more about them). Suffice it to say they're an American candle company based in Deerfield Massachusetts and you'll struggle to find a better quality candle in the same price range. They were the first company to start making their now signature jar candles (exactly what they sound like) and also do their fragrances in tealights, samplers and tarts (as well as car fragrances, reed diffusers and many other products).

If you're new to YC's I would highly recommend using either their tarts (if you have an oil burner) or their samplers in the first instance to decide whether you actually like the fragrance when it's burning as they jars can be quite an investment and a large one will set you back between £18 and £20 - a lot of money to spend if it turns out you don't really like the scent! A tart will usually cost around £1.40 and a sampler around £1.75 meaning they're a much more economical way of finding the fragrance for you.

I prefer the tarts as I think they produce a stronger fragrance and last longer than they're stated 8 hours, meaning they're excellent value for money - especially if you can find them for as little as 50p! To use a tart, however, is not like using a normal candle as they don't have a wick in them. They are flat round discs of wax which you place in the top of a burner with a tealight underneath. The heat from the tealight them melts the wax and so releases the fragrance which them diffuses around your home.

I much prefer using the wax in my burners to using oil and water as there is no danger of it burning dry resulting in a cracked burner. You simply blwo out the tealight when you want to "turn off" the fragrance and then relight another one underneath when you want more. Once the fragrance has worn off or is too weak for you, wait until the wax is solid again and slide the tip of a knife underneath the wax and it will pop out, enabling you to replace it either another tart. If you don't want to use a knife you can also pop the burner in the freezer for a while and this also makes the tart easier to remove, although this is much easier if you have a burner with a detachable dish and don't have to put the entire thing in the freezer!

So, what about this particular fragrance? According to YC it is the "sunny citrus aroma of crisp juicy mandarins and vibrant lemon verbena". How they managed to make it a greeny/bluey/turquoise colour then I'll never know but hey ho! As soon as I unwrapped the first tart I could smell a strong lemony citrus scent and after lighting a tealight underneath my tart it was only a matter of minutes before the fragrance started diffusing through my room. The Island Spa fragrance is part of the "fresh" family of scents and you can't argue with this. The fragrance of this is really uplifting and invigorating with the lemon really coming through strongly. In fact, I think YC used exactly the right word when they said vibrant. Whilst the overriding impression is definitely a citrus one it's a lot more subtle citrus than others such as the Sparkling Lemon and i think the mandarin in this helps to calm it down a little. So rather than being really zingy and efforvescent, it's much more subtle and relaxed whilst not losing any of the power or strength.

As the lemon is the overriding scent you get I tend to burn this one either in my kitchen, or more often in my bathroom as the colour matches my decor in there! It does really well at freshening up a room rather than providing a warming, soothing fragrance so it works really well in spaces that might otherwise not smell quite so nice. What I like about this one, and tarts in general, is that if I melt it in my bathroom and leave the doors upstairs open it permeates through the whole of my upstairs. As i'm not always in the bathroom, I tend to leave the tealight lit just long enough to melt the wax and then blow it out. This means that the tart lasts longer but doesn't detract from the fresh, clean smell I get in my bathroom.

Overall I love the Island Spa fragrance and am over the moon that I managed to find some more tarts so cheaply. I am a firm fan of the fresh family of fragrances and this one fits in perfectly with that...it's fresh, light, uplifting and invigorating without being overpowerful or too intense. It is not as lemony as the pure lemon fragrances they do, but I find the blend of mandarin and lemon verbena to be really lovely and much more subtle than the pure lemon ones. If, like me, you like the fresher fragrances and come across this in the shops I would highly recommend it.