Company: Aubrey’s Candles & Crafts

By Andrea, added 8/5/10

Type: 16oz Candles & Melts

Scents: Cinnamon Buns
Grandma’s Kitchen
Harvest
Love Spell
Granny’s Pie Crust

Strength: Light to medium

Introduction to my candle review of Aubrey's Candles:

I love trying new-to-me sites for my smelly goodies. I had heard good things about Aubrey’s Candles, so my nose was happy to follow the buzz and review a few products from here.

Aubrey is a wife and the mother of five children in Illinois. Count ‘em – FIVE! How in the world she finds time to make scented goodies for us scent addicts is beyond me! She has been creating her own candles for about five years. Her inspiration? An overpriced candle dud. I can just imagine – beautiful packaging, a flowery scent description, plenty of marketing driving up the price, and…tunneling. I certainly could understand that frustration! So Aubrey set out to make her own candles - initially for herself, then for family and friends, then for the masses. She now makes and sells 100% soy products on her very own website and she has been quite successful at it.

Her website has recently been revamped but still with that down-home country prim feel. It’s fairly easy to navigate as you are able to click through to the major categories from the left-hand side menu. The scent list is easy to find and something I gravitated to right away.

Speaking of the scent list, there is a very good variety offered here. It seems all scent-bases are covered – bakery, fruity, fresh, earthy. There are even some seasonal and holiday scents to get you in the right mood. As for her product lines, there is plenty to choose from: jar candles, prim fixins, electric grubby candles, wax-dipped items, and melts (both bakery shaped and 2oz tart cups). Her bath/body offering right now consists of an 8oz shea butter lotion.

The products I received to review were melts in Cinnamon Buns, Grandma’s Kitchen, Harvest and Love Spell. I also received a 16oz candle scented in Granny’s Pie Crust. My items arrived well packaged and secure. My candle was wrapped in bubble wrap to make sure it arrived in one piece. My jar was a bit oily, like some of the fragrance oil on the outside of the jar. It cleaned up easily with a wipe, but it did cause some of the ink on my label to be smudged.

What did my candles/melts look like?

The melts are 2oz each and come in oval black cups with clear lids. The scent name is clearly identified with a large white label on the cup. The colors of the Harvest, Cinnamon Buns and Grandma’s Kitchen melts were all tan/light brown and the Lovespell melt was a pretty light purple. My candle was in a 16oz clear apothecary style jar with a flat top glass lid. (Note: I did not see this size jar available for sale at the time of this review.) My candle was received at the time that there was a changeover needed for the labels. I had an oval label on front of the jar with the store name and contact information clearly identified. The scent name was included on the opposite side of the jar on a small white label similar to the ones used for the tart cups. Aubrey did let me know that she had found a source to print her new candle labels so the ones I had were not representative of what customers will be receiving in the future. On the bottom of the jar there was the typical candle warning label. All labels could be removed with a little bit of elbow grease, if you wanted just the clear jar on display. The candle contained two wicks which was nice to see with this size candle jar. The wax was light brown in color.

What did my candles/melts smell like?

Harvest:

"The warm spices of Harvest"

Not a detailed scent description, but I assumed this was a dupe of Yankee Candle’s Harvest, which I enjoy. Sometimes these mixed spiced scents can overdo it on the cinnamon, but not so here. I did smell some cinnamon, but it was not overpowering. At times I could also pick out some clove and maybe nutmeg? All of the spices blended together quite well making for a very good fall-type scent. The YC version has just a hint of sweetness, but I did not detect that with this version. The scent throw was of medium intensity - it filled the room it was in without being overbearing. I was able to get a decent throw through two tealights on this one.

Love Spell

"Smells like Victoria secret perfume"

This is one of my favorite scents, so I was pleased to see one of these included for the review. This seems to be a love it or hate it type of scent. I’m in the “love it” camp for sure! The perfume combines mandarin orange, raspberry, cherry blossom, peach and white jasmine among other things. It’s primarily a fruity scent but with hints of floral and musk, making for a very romantic scent. I’d say this melt was dead-on…almost intoxicating. This was the strongest of my melts and it went strong through two tealights. I had a lighter, but decent throw on the 3rd tealight, so I was pleased with the longevity of this particular scent.

Cinnamon Bun

"I can smell them cooking now!!!"

You’ve heard it here first: I’m a cinnamon bun scent snob. I prefer more bun than cinnamon with a great balance of frosting, and it seems those are hard to find. To my nose’s pleasant surprise, this one delivers. The buttery, doughy bun was the predominant scent with hints of cinnamon and the buttercream frosting swirling in the background. Oooh this smelled good! Droolworthy, even! It reminded me of those giant cinnamon buns at the mall. Oh yeah – you know the ones! This scent was absolutely eat-a-liscious, but it was not nearly strong enough for me. I did use an electric melter for this one, so maybe I would have had better results using a tealight. I’d be willing to try that change as this was a really good scent and just the type of cinnamon bun I’m looking for.

Grandma’s Kitchen

"A delicious homey scent with cloves, cinnamon & vanilla"

Mmmmm… Grandma’s kitchen. Warm, comforting, inviting… always something baking. Those are my fond memories and I especially like taking that trip down memory lane this time of year. The melt Grandma’s Kitchen does capture some of that warmth and comforting goodness. The clove stood out more in this scent but it was not harsh – toned down by the creamy vanilla. This made for a very good spice mix and again had a moderate scent throw. I was able to use it with one tealight, but didn’t detect much scent with a 2nd tealight. All in all, though, a good warm mix perfect for the fall season.

Granny’s Pie Crust

"Still warm from the oven"

While we’re in Grandma’s kitchen, let’s turn our attention to the soon-to-be-made pies. My grandmother didn’t use store-bought crusts (no, I didn’t inherit that trait) – she made her own delicious concoctions from scratch and it could be an all day venture. No matter what filling was planned, the buttery, sugary pie crust was always a sign of more good things to come. This was easily my favorite scent in the bunch - all pie crust and all good. No fruit or filling notes, no blending going on. Just pure pie crust. Don’t make your own pie crusts either? Just light this baby up in your kitchen and no one would ever be the wiser. Shhhhh! The scent throw on this candle was moderate at best. Another sinfully delicious candle scent that I wish was just a bit stronger.

How did my melts/candle perform?

The melts were fairly soft as they were 100% soy. I had to squeeze the cups just a bit to get the wax to come out in one piece, but there was really no mess. The melts were easy to remove from the tealight burners – I simply placed them in the freezer for a few minutes and poof! they were out. Grandma’s Kitchen was good through one tealight, Harvest was good for two, and Love Spell stretched it out to three. My Cinnamon Bun melt lasted a few hours on an electric melter.

The candle burned very evenly, no tunneling and no wasted wax. It took about an hour to get a full wax pool on first burn and the candle performed beautifully on all subsequent burns. I did need to be diligent about trimming my wicks or I would notice smoking. I was able to burn this candle all the way to the end without wasting any wax and that’s a huge plus in my book.

Closing to my review:

I enjoyed my products that I tried from Aubrey’s. I think she offers a good, quality product with excellent customer service.

As far as scent throw, the Love Spell was the strongest and longest lasting. I do wish the scent throws were a bit stronger because all of the scents I tried were really, really good. Still I would definitely go back and try more products and scents from here – those cute bakery melts are calling my name. You? Also, free shipping on all orders... can't beat that!!

Keep on sniffing!

~ Andrea

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