From the Archives: Cabin Candlery Review

Cabin Candlery has a rich 16-year history…. a history that I was completely oblivious to until just recently. When I checked out their website, I learned all about this company and its founders, Joanne and Dick Brown. Reading on Cabin Candlery’s website about their dreams and struggles left a good impression with me and gave the company a more personal appeal.

The website itself is simplistic and very easy to navigate. Cabin Candlery offers four different jar sizes, votives, tea lights and fluted melts. All of their products are hand mixed and hand poured to order. There are pictures of all the products they offer along with brief scent descriptions. I found the ordering process to be easy as pie. Credit card payments are accepted and they ship via UPS. Also worth noting is the fact that all my emailed questions were answered quickly. Great communication is something I look for in an online candle company and I found it here in abundance.

A natural calming scent used to create a harmonious flow of emotional energy.

I wanted to try Cabin Candlery’s patchouli scent in particular because most of their candle scents are custom blended exclusively. That got me curious about their take on this scent. I’ve found that patchouli scents run the gamut from sweet to pungent. It is one of those scents that can vary considerably between candle brands. Just as the scent varies, so does my affinity for it. I tend to favor the more pungent, spicy versions of patchouli… but even then, it’s got to be just the right balance of bitter and sweet. Too much in either direction sends me running, but when it’s right, it’s right on, man.

This patchouli did deliver that herbal, bittersweet fragrance that I was looking for. It was somewhat sweet…definitely heady and thick, but with a nice, bitter bite to it. The candle itself needed a jar topper to really get going. I needed to insulate that heat in the beginning to get a complete melt pool. Once it got going, the scent wafted around the room nicely. I liked this relaxing, mellow scent best in the evenings. It had a dreaminess that fit well with the setting sun.

People often associate patchouli scents with the 1960’s, and although I was just a baby in the late 60’s, Cabin Candlery’s patchouli makes it easy to imagine what that era must have been like… or at least smelled like. Everything I’ve ever read or seen about that unique decade gives me the impression of herbal peacefulness… if you catch my drift… and patchouli has that heady, incense-like quality, that makes me think of leather fringe jackets, and flowers in my hair. If only I had a time machine… first stop would be Max Yeager’s Farm, New York, Summer, 1969.

A rich, ripe aroma of sweet black cherries.

Why settle for just a cherry scent when you can have a black cherry scent? What’s the difference? Well, what I was looking for with this scent was a deeper, more tart cherry scent… less sweet, no bakery, pure dark ripe cherry. What I got was…. just that! A rich, deep, true cherry. It had some sweetness, to be sure, but it wasn’t like a dessert or bakery scent. This scent was made for the fruity scent purist… All cherry and no pie, baby!

This candle had a decent throw. It filled my… hallway? Yes, hallway. I ran out of rooms to adorn with candles so I recently acquired a new cabinet for the end of my hall just so I could have yet another space in which to enjoy scent. It’s the perfect candle burning spot, by the way. How could I have overlooked this hallway for so long? It’s ideal for sending fragrance throughout the house… but I’m getting off track. Back to this fruity Black Cherry candle.

It scented my hallway well, yet never chased me out of the house. It was noticeable whenever I walked from room to room, like a surprise treat while I puttered around the house.

A blend of rich, creamy milk, chocolate, and a hint of whiskey

Ah, a touch of the Irish for me. I love Irish cream… once in a while I’ll add a drop or two to my coffee, or sip a sweet creamy after dinner cocktail. It’s just enough to satisfy that sweet tooth without having a big dessert. I wondered if having a candle scented in Irish Cream would satisfy as much as the drink, and in turn curb that craving for dessert. Is it asking too much for a candle scent to satisfy a craving for a sweet dessert? In a word, yes…it IS asking too much… I mean, really, my experiment was destined to fail from the very beginning.

That’s not to say this candle scent wasn’t good… it surely was… just not a reasonable stand-in for an actual dessert, or a chilled sip of real Irish Cream liquor. What the candle scent did do was make me crave real Irish Cream something fierce and I ended up sipping a glass while I enjoyed part of the candle.

Cabin Candlery’s Irish Cream Candle smelled creamy and sweet, almost like a brulee. I couldn’t detect much chocolate or whiskey as separate notes listed in the description. I thought there may actually have been some buttery vanilla in it. I would like to have smelled the whiskey a bit more prominently. As good as the candle smelled, it didn’t jump out at me as smelling exactly like Irish Cream. If I didn’t know the scent name beforehand, I doubt if I could have guessed it just by smell alone.

The candle scent carried well throughout my kitchen. It was noticeable without being overbearing. Even though I smelled more of a brulee than an Irish Cream, I still enjoyed this scent quite a bit.