Home Fragrance

Choosing The Best Scented Candle For Your Home
By Alex Muir

Scented candles are used today for a variety of reasons, from simply adding a luxurious fragrance to your home or as a focal point in the decor of a particular room. For many however they have another useful purpose and that is their ability to mask unpleasant odours within the home or give a fresh aroma to a room which has begun to smell a little stale, perhaps as a result of not being aired properly during colder winter months.

But if you are indeed using scented candles to cover up a lingering unpleasant or stale odour how can you be sure that the candle you choose will have a sufficiently strong scent? One of the most common complaints one hears about scented candles is that, once lit, they emit only the weakest of fragrances, a scent that is barely noticeable and certainly not enough to make your home smell fragrant or cover up the stale smell of last night's takeaway meal.

So if you are faced with the situation what should you do? How can you be sure that the scented candle you are considering buying will give off a noticeable, pleasant aroma when you cannot light it before you buy. This problem is compounded when you are buying your scented candles online. At least if you are choosing your candles from a retail store you should be able to smell them, albeit in unlit form and therefore be able to judge how they are likely to smell once lit.

In this situation there are two options open to you. Firstly, you might want to think about buying one of the strong scented candles that many candle manufacturers now advertise among their catalogue of products. These candles tend to be made with more fragrance oil than their run-of-the-mill counterparts, allowing them to emit a stronger fragrance as the candle burns. The downside to these candles is that some people find that they can in fact have too intense a fragrance, to the extent that it becomes an irritant.

In that event why not look for handmade scented candles, created with natural waxes such as beeswax or soy wax, and most importantly, which derive their fragrance from the essential oils of plants, barks and other botanicals? These are the same essential oils which are used to create fine perfumes and fragrances and when used by expert candle makers results in a candle which fills your home with a noticeably pleasant aroma, with none of the possible irritants or side effects such as headaches which are often attributed to the use of artificially scented candles.

Using candles made from good quality wax will also help. These natural waxes burn for a longer time and much more cleanly than traditional waxes but they also have the added benefit that they offer a better fragrance "throw" than other types of wax,. This effectively means that your chosen scent will be more effectively deployed throughout your living space, which is after all what you are looking to achieve in the first place.

But what of the cost of these premium quality handmade scented candles? Why would you pay up to two or three times as much for a beeswax candle containing essential plant oils when you can purchase something much more cheaply from your local store or supermarket? Well there are two factors to think about here. In the first place the cheaper candle is likely to have a very limited burn time when compared to a premium product and is also likely to produce very little in the way of fragrance. The more expensive candle will usually burn for a much longer time, have a much more natural fragrance from essential oils and what's more that fragrance will be more effectively dispersed through your home than that from an inexpensive alternative. So, in essence, you are faced with the choice - do you go for something cheap, but which may produce unsatisfactory results or buy the more expensive option because you know it will last longer and perform better, giving you better value-for-money in the long run

The choice is yours. Candles are a great way to add a welcoming touch to any home. Their ambient glow and rich scents add warmth and charm to our homes. Scented candles come in such a wide variety of designs, colours and aromas but they are sought after mainly for their aroma. Surely then it makes sense to choose one that fills your home with fragrance.

The author is the owner of The Scented Candle Store where you will find a wide selection of luxurious home fragrances, including candles, scented candles and fragrance diffusers from leading brands around the world.

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