Candles from the Keeping Room – Scented Melt Review

by Deirdre Bloom

Company: Candles from the Keeping Room

Type: Scented melts

Strength: Strong

Introduction to my Candles from the Keeping Room review:

Hello, I’m Deirdre and I’m a scent lemming, you know, one of those critters who follows the others and leaps when they leap? If everyone else is raving about a certain fragrance, or a maybe a certain vendor, I have to try it for myself.  Having recently decided it was time to replenish my slowly disappearing tart stash (*gasp* I only had about fifty left), I was on the hunt for a new vendor (well, new for me). Enter, Candles From The Keeping Room.  So, feeling slightly guilty (it’s the first time I’ve purchased from another vendor since closing up my own tart shop… I almost felt like I was cheating on myself!), I made the jump (lame lemming reference, I know) and placed my first order.

A little about Candles From the Keeping Room:

The company is owned by Carol Wolstenkroft. While they specialize in wax melts, they also offer a small selection of scented candles as well. Based out of Pennsylvania, Carol has been pouring wax for over 9 years and is one of EBAYS top rated sellers with a feedback rating of 100%!

Yes, Candles From The Keeping Room (or CFTKR as it’s known) is an Ebay store. I tend to think of Ebay as an online garage sale for bargains, and honestly, had never thought to buy tarts on Ebay. But with an open mind, and a very scent deprived nose, I logged onto Ebay. The store was very easy to navigate and the variety of scent choices made me happy (LOTS of scrumptious sounding descriptions!). While all the tarts were very nicely categorized by scent (Vanilla Noel Blends, Fall Blends, etc.), I would have liked to have had one page with just scent descriptions.  Feeling slightly overwhelmed with such a large variety, and since it was a virgin purchase, I played it safe and ordered two grab bags and a few of her zucchini bread blends.

Customer Service:

Customer service is key with me. You can have the best product out there, but if you don’t offer stellar customer service, I won’t be back. Treat me like I’m more than a dollar sign, and you have a customer for life (I know… a DIVA lemming!). Let’s face it; there are lots of vendors out there. The ones who go
the extra mile are the only ones I tend to remember.Okay, I’m hopping off the customer service soapbox and getting to the point.  I did have a few trepidations regarding customer service with an EBAY purchase. I’m happy to say that Candles From the Keeping Room proved my fears to be unjustified.  Carol, the owner, emailed me immediately to say , “Thank you”. It was a quick note, but it was personal (not the generic “thank you” invoice). I know she’s a busy woman, and I liked that she took a minute to thank me.

Best of all? I placed the order on Monday and it shipped that day. I was prepared to wait a few weeks for my order and was pleasantly surprised that it shipped within hours of ordering. The package even had a tracking number so I could track when my package would arrive…. a fabulous feature when you live in a city with 115 degree temperatures! There’s nothing worse than box of gooey melted wax globs oozing in your mailbox!

Last but not least:  FREEBIES!! LOTS of freebies. Enough said.

What did my melts from Candles from the Keeping Room look like:

I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for packaging. I love pretty labels, fancy logos and ribbon… lots of ribbon. I’m like a 5 year old that begs his mom to buy that one box of cereal because it has a really cool toy pictured on the front. Give me pretty packaging and I’m probably going to buy it!If I would have walked into a store and seen the packaging on CFTKR’s tarts, I would not have given these tarts a second glance. Now, don’t get me wrong, they weren’t badly packaged, just very simply packaged, no frills or fluff. Each tart was packaged and stapled shut in individual clear cello bags
with a small black and white label. Not very eye catching, but they were labeled with the scent. Now, herein lies two huge pet peeves of mine: One, I hate opening a tart to sniff it and not being able to reseal it. Every bag I opened, no matter how carefully, ripped. I couldn’t reseal the bags. Second pet peeve: I know I’m not the only one who has fallen in LOVE with a tart, pulled out the wrapper to see what company it was from… and been devastated when there is no company information on the wrapper. I would have liked to have had at least the company name on the label. I can’t re-order if I don’t know where the tart originally came from.Most of the tarts were around 1 oz or so in a variety of cute little grubby-type shapes. The grab bags were sealed in a clear cello bag with a number label on them and tied with a homespun ribbon (whoo hoo, ribbon!).

What did my melts smell like?

This Diva Lemming is also a culinary challenged lemming (this is starting to get wordy!). I love the idea of baking, but would rather fake it. 🙂 Nothing makes me happier than to burn a fragrance that makes everyone think I’ve spent the day baking ( although the family tends to get a little testy when they think they’re getting cinnamon rolls and find out it’s wax melting).  Beware kids…mom’s whipping up a tart burner full of Glazed Pumpkin Danish!

Glazed Pumpkin Danish:

I had high hopes for this baby! I envisioned a delicious spiced pumpkin beaten into submission by a strong flaky sweet crust and dripping with gooey sticky powdered sugar glaze. High hopes made me hungry.

This little orange bundt cake weighed in at 1.1 oz. On my first cold sniff, I detected nutmeg, cinnamon, and smidgen of pumpkin tackled by a feisty, underdog note of buttery crust..yum! Off to the melter it went.

After 45 minutes, the wax was completely melted and I was salivating (a definite, albeit gross, sign of approval). The delicious aroma filled my kitchen and began wafting throughout my family room.

I didn’t really pick up any glaze (powdered sugar or not). The top notes were definitely spices with middle notes of sweetened pumpkin (beaten into more submission than I’d like). After several hours, the spices mellowed out and I could pick up a bit more of the buttery texture. This one lasted for a good 6 hours.  It was a very comforting, cozy fragrance.  Final conclusion: My daughter asked if I was baking. Mission accomplished.

The website description: A sweet danish aroma with sweet pumpkin with a bit of spice blended thru out… a very yummy scent.

Strawberry Zucchini bread:

This one intrigued me. I had visions of sweet strawberry preserves complete with strawberry chunks, slathered over warm, slightly spiced zucchini bread.  I drooled on the packaging a bit.While it didn’t quite live up to that vision, it did create quite a stir in the Bloom house! The cold throw was just “ok” for me (do I sound like Randy Jackson or what?) I could smell it when I sniffed it, but if it wasn’t right under my nose, I couldn’t really smell it. But we all know that cold throw is no indicator of wax performance, so I chucked that puppy into my handy dandy electric warmer.The tart looked like a little piece of toast (a Smurf sized piece of toast!). It was approximately 1 oz and took about 40 minutes to melt completely in my plug in warmer. Within 15 minutes, my mouth was watering. Within 20, my husband asked me, “Why does it smell like Captain Crunch Crunchberries in here?”  Yup, you got it, it was an exact replica of… Crunchberries! I didn’t smell any spice at all, and the dominate note was definitely sweet berry (although to me it was a strawberry blend, not quite a true straight strawberry). The bakery that pulled through was very light, but sweet and muffin-like and it complemented the berries very nicely.

Overall, this was a delicious scent (even if it did make me crave cereal for dinner!). Within an hour, the sweet fragrance floated from the kitchen
warmer into the larger living room and down the hall. It was scrumptious. I will say that this one was what I called a fast fader. It started out nice and strong, filling my kitchen, living room and making its way happily down the hall. Within 4 ½ hours, it had faded to a one room fragrance, lingering sweetly in the kitchen. Overall, a very delicious fragrance I’d order again.

Their description:  Here is our signature zucchini bread blended with our yummy  strawberry….. and it is fabulous… The scent of fresh Zucchini Bread with notes of freshly grated zucchini, cinnamon and spices and our infamous fresh picked strawberry… back by requests….

Candied Apple Pomander

With fall just around the corner, apple fragrances seem to be at the top of my list. And who doesn’t love candied apples? Description from Candles from the Keeping Room:

“A freshly baked green apple type with top notes of apple, pear, peach and orange peel; spicy cinnamon and clove middle notes and a sweet caramelized base note.”

On first cold sniff, this wax melt had a sweet, almost perfumey note to it. It reminded me a little of my grandma’s potpourri (not quite the fragrance I had in mind).  I didn’t pick up any spices at all, but my apple craving schnoz picked up a hint of sweet apple (more like a Fuji apple than a green apple) .  Trying to vanquish the vision of potpourri and lace doilies the fragrance had summoned up, I threw it in the warmer and waited for it to melt.

The little tan, pie shaped tart with a cute heart on top, weighed a little over one ounce. After only 20 minutes, I was already glad I’d given this one the benefit of the doubt. Gone was the perfumey note and what surfaced was a delicious candied apple aroma. Sweet and sticky mixed with a little bit of apple, possibly a touch of pear. I still didn’t smell any spice, which was fine with me, as I feel it would have interfered with the sweetness that pulled through. This wasn’t a crazy strong fragrance, it was rather on the light side. However, it was pleasant and lingering and managed to fill my kitchen and living room nicely. Like the previous tarts, this one faded to a one room fragrance in about 4 hours.

Final thoughts – short but sweet:

Fabulous customer service (*cough* Freebies!) and fast shipping were definite pluses. While the scents didn’t last as long as I preferred, for the price, I would definitely order again.

Happy melting!!

~ Deirdre

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