Cucumber Lettuce, Mutiny, Night Spirit, Vanille Abricot and Vaniglia Del Madagascar – Blue Moon Candles

Cucumber Lettuce, Mutiny, Night Spirit, Vanille Abricot and Vaniglia Del Madagascar – Blue Moon Candles

by Andrea Haskins

Brand: Blue Moon Candles

Style: Candle Tin, votives, tulip jars,
rum pot candles and pillars.

Scent Strength: Strong to medium

Introduction to my Blue Moon Candles review:

I’m a fan of Blue Moon Candles. But truth be told, I don’t shop here often and I’m not sure why that is since I’m always pleased when I do. Great customer service, an array of scents and products to choose from with never any disappointments. I think I get caught up with the latest buzz and forget about the tried and true… which is really unfair to this company. Blue Moon Candles is definitely the tried and true for me. When the opportunity arose to review Blue Moon, I jumped up and down like an eager kid in class – “Me! Me! Pick me! Pick me!”The website itself is a thing of sophisticated beauty. The background color is a gorgeous deep blue with a lovely lady perched on a crescent moon in the top corner. I love the posted quote: “It is better to light a Candle than curse the darkness…”. Very thought provoking and I think it helps set the mood for this site. Scroll down a bit and you can view a slideshow of some of the available products. Man, I was mesmerized for a moment. How cool!!! That slide show itself was worth the visit!

You can check out the website by using the menu on the left-hand side. Here you will find links for the fragrances, the various types of wax products offered, a “find your style” quasi-quiz (I’m a classical traditionalist!), among other things. I found the website easy to navigate and fun to explore. There is a LOT of information to be found here.

And there is the fragrance menu. Have I mentioned the fragrance menu? WOW! The list of scents available is simply. Well. Amazing!! There are over 600 scents to choose from. I suppose it could be overwhelming, especially without scent descriptions (my only gripe). But it was also a lot of fun reading through this list. Some usual suspects of course. Also some very unique scent blends. Barbershop 1920s. Midnight in Tunisia. Shangri-La. I could go on and on and on.

But on with the candle review! With soooo many scent choices it was hard to narrow it down to a handful for review. Decisions, decisions! So I let Lisa, owner of Blue Moon Candles, decide. I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed. Here’s what she sent: Night Spirit rum pot and apothecary jars, Mutiny Pyrate candle tin, Cucumber Lettuce pillar candle, Vanille Abricot tulip jar candle, and Vaniglia Del Madagascar votives.

What do my Blue Moon candles look like?

When I opened my package I only had two words to say: “Oh. My.” Let me tell you this: If you have a Blue Moon order, you have ready-made gifts. Easy peasy. Individually boxed, beautiful decorative ribbons tied on the outside, colored tissue on the inside. Each candle was packaged so carefully and so beautifully, it was almost a shame to keep them for myself. Almost. *wink wink*My Pyrate tin (Mutiny) was super duper cute (see picture at top of this page). The lid of this tin had a pretty blue label and a shiny gold pirate’s coin glued to the top. Perfect for the theme of these candles! The top of the candle was decorated with a pretty blue glitter. The wax itself was blue.

My Vaniglia Del Madagascar votives are a creamy color. The Cucumber Lettuce pillar was pale green.

My Night Spirit candle was her Rum Pot candle jar. It has a larger base and tapers up toward the top. Tied around the neck of the jar was a pretty black ribbon. The Blue Moon label is on the glass lid and the bottom of the jar housed the typical warning label. The wax color was a dark purple (eggplant).

Her Vanille Abricot candle was in a beautiful Tulip jar. The shape of this jar reminds you of a blooming tulip bulb, with a smaller base at the bottom and a fairly large opening. There is no lid for this double-wicked candle. The wax was a creamy pale orange with gold glitter sprinkled on top. There are no labels on the sides of the jar.

One thing about these candles is they are truly custom. You may choose your wax color along with scent when making your purchase. Twice the fun!

How did my Blue Moon candles smell?

Well, here is the piece de resistance ! Blue Moon candles are not just fluff and for show. Pomp and circumstance. It’s not all about an alluring website, a jillion scents and beautiful packaging. Those things are there – don’t get me wrong. But the bottom line for me becomes, how do they smell? How do they perform? Blue Moon excels in these areas to me.

Cucumber Lettuce

This was a new one for me. I immediately thought “fresh” and “clean” when I read the scent name. As I might have mentioned there are no scent descriptions on site (grrrrr), but Lisa was more than helpful with providing them. Here’s what she sent me for this scent:

“Cucumber & Lettuce~ This is a very fresh & clean fragrance, much fresher than “straight” cucumber. Several of our customers say it smells like “green” should smell.”

Aha! I was right on! I lit this candle and let it burn in a small room with the door closed. It was not long before I smelled it well outside of that room! Not an “in-your-face” overpowering scent. But just enough, that I kept saying, “What is that smell?” It finally dawned on me that it was my fresh, clean, Cucumber Lettuce pillar. I went back into my “burning room” to be met by a sweet green scent. This is not a green-earthy scent. Softer and sweeter, but not as sweet as you would think of cucumber melon. The scent throw was strong enough to fill that room. It was heavenly.

Night Spirit:

This candle was beautiful and had an interesting cold smell. Every time I sniffed it, I seemed to pick out something different! Then when I realized why when I read the scent description:

“This mystical scent embodies the warmth of the communal fire, the dry sensuality of the dusty Desert earth, the piercing clarity of the bright evening stars, and the soft purple blanket of Winter night. A well-balanced bouquet of nutmeg and cinnamon spices, black pepper, and chili, blended with warm amber, earthy patchouli, cedarwood, and soft, sweet vanilla. Very different, but so accessible; this will undoubtedly be a new unisex favorite!”

So I wasn’t sure what to expect when burning this candle except I knew it would be complex. And complex it was! Very powerful scent, with the notes of amber and patchouli blending well together. The hints of vanilla were just on the top, making this scent not too “heady.” Every now and then I would catch a whiff of the spices and black pepper – just enough to tingle the nose. The scent throw on this baby was very strong! I could smell it outside my testing room into the main part of the house. Perfect!

Vaniglia Del Madagascar

I love vanilla. Sweet vanilla, sexy vanilla, creamy vanilla, straight vanilla, vanilla blends. Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla! So this was a perfect scent for me to try!

“A MUST-HAVE for Vanilla lovers! A rich blend of Madagascar Vanilla Orchid and Vanilla Bean with a sensual amber background. Madagascar produces the world’s finest vanilla. The process of converting vanilla into a spice is very long and complicated; hence, vanilla is one of the most expensive spices in the world. This heady fragrance is luscious and very sexy stuff.”

The cold sniff on these votives is quite strong. The vanilla smell is so rich! I wasn’t disappointed when I burned these babies. Ummmm, this is wonderful. Creamy. And the hint of amber makes it a very grown-up vanilla.

Vanille Abricot

Yummmm. My vanilla mixed with juicy apricot? I was even more excited reading the scent description:

“Strong & Delicious-the Apricot really comes through. Touched with a hint of rum, the true, sweet apricot preserves layered with creamy ricotta filling.”

I did not get much with the cold sniff but still had high hopes for the official burning. I lit this candle and started out in my testing room where I try to burn all my candles for review. I came back several times but never detected any scent. So I moved this beautiful candle to another room and that did the trick! I smelled mostly the sweet apricot with hints of creamy vanilla. Still this candle did not have the throw I would like. I loved the scent but it simply wasn’t strong enough for me.

Mutiny

I’ll admit it. This one scared me a bit while reading the scent description:

“The fragrance opens with a burst of Toasted Caramelized Sugar quickly yielding to woodsy Cedar and warm Tonka Bean. A heart of Patchouli, Licorice, French Lavender, Heliotrope and Coriander is revealed. Finally, Lilting notes of Italian Bergamot and Mandarin are balanced by Star Anise and Fresh Ginger. Sexy Rebellion at its finest!”

Several notes here I would normally shy away from. And now they were combined?!? But there was something about that glitter on top of this candle. It kept calling my name. “Andrea… Andrea… Burn me! Burn me! Look at my shiny blue glitter!!” Who can resist that??? So I lit the wicks (pleasantly surprised this tin had two wicks) and left it to do its thing. Guess what? This little guy totally won me over. Totally!!! I’m not sure I could pick out all the individual notes, but the combination was intoxicating! I would describe this as exotic and yes, somewhat sexy. I could definitely pick out the cedar, which made it kind of warm. This scent also had just a little “bite” to it. Perhaps that was the licorice? Anise? Ginger? Hmmm… not sure. But I do know the scent worked for me and I would certainly buy it again. This 8oz tin scented my room nicely with a moderate scent throw.

How did my Blue Moon candles burn?

These candles burned evenly and were very clean. I got full wax pools, no mushrooming wicks. These are the type of candles that you can light and leave burning for a long time which I love. The pillar burned well and kept a decent outer shell. The touch of glitter made for a pretty burn as the glitter floated in the wax pool. Just beautiful.

Closing to my Blue Moon review:

Blue Moon Candles offers a wide variety of scents and candle products to choose from. The customer service is top notch – Lisa will answer any and all questions promptly. She takes such care in product presentation – it’s like opening gifts when your package arrives! And it never seems to be the same twice. How does she do that? I don’t know, but it makes shopping here fun and adventurous.

I will be shopping here again – and soon! I would highly recommend you give them a try too.

Happy Candle Shopping!

~ Andrea

Visit Blue Moon Candles

**Please note! It appears Blue Moon has closed their doors which we are very sad to learn. If any updates occur and they re-open, I’ll add their links back to their reviews.