I've been on a mission lately... to find a strawberry scented candle that smells like the real thing. When it comes to fruit in my candles, strawberry isn't really a scent I'd buy for my own candle-pleasure. I'm more of a citrus and bakery freak, but when noticing strawberry on a candle site's scent list about a month ago, I started to wonder if candle companies were able to duplicate the smell of real juicy strawberries that I love so much. Every summer I make a trip to our local produce market and buy a big flat of strawberries to munch on.  When I'm on my way home in the car with my fruity-find, the smell is incredible...I love it!

The wheels started turning in my head and I figured since strawberry season is on it's way it would be fun to compare strawberry candles from different companies.  I had a lightbulb moment when the title "Battle of the Strawberries" came to me...I was so excited! I told some of my candle-lovin friends about my idea to see if they knew of a strawberry candle that smelled like the real thing.  Every one of them said no and that it's really hard to find an authentic one. After I heard that, I was even more determined to find the utopia of strawberry candles.

I thought it'd be interesting to compare strawberry scents from some of the bigger and smaller candle companies out there.  I wondered... Who made the better strawberry candle?  One of the huge brands found in every gift shop known to man or one of the smaller, but fabulous candle companies we've grown to love here at CandleFind?

When I started searching online with my credit card in hand, I noticed that a lot of the big candle companies didn't carry plain old strawberry scented candles.  I was pretty suprised.  I just assumed they all would, but maybe some brands don't carry strawberry because they know it's a difficult scent to replicate.  The only plain strawberry scents I managed to find out of the big name brands were from Yankee and Bridgewater, so I decided to use them to represent the big companies in my review.

As most of you already know, my two favorite smaller candle companies are Pure Integrity and Candles of Eden.  Luckily, they both had a straight strawberry.  I couldn't wait to try each strawberry scent from my four chosen companies.  You can find my thoughts on each below. I hope this will make your search for the perfect strawberry candle a little easier.

I think this strawberry candle from Bridgewater could definitely stand some improvement.  In other words, if you're looking to buy a really authentic strawberry candle, I would pass on this one.  It's not terrible, but it's not fantastic either...it's just one of those "so-so" candles. I could tell it was strawberry when it was burning, but I felt it was definitely lacking that juicy, realistic strawberry smell I was after.  My hubbie agreed with me too.

In terms of scent strength I would say this candle was about a 5 on a scale from 1 to 10...definitely an "in-the-middle" kind of candle. My jar is their 14 oz. size, but this scent might be more powerful in one of their bigger jars.  In order to smell this candle at it's peak, I had to be a few feet away from it.

This is the third jar candle I've tried from Bridgewater so the company is still fairly new to me. I have mixed feelings about them after trying just two of their scents.  The first candle I tried, Caramel Apple, had a weak scent throw but the second one, Fruit Fantasia, was pretty good. This one is just ok.