New Spring Candles from Bath & Body Works

We're off to the tropics today people!  I visited my local BBW recently and quickly became trapped inside forever, sniffing away at their hundreds (or what seemed like hundreds!) of re-launched and newly launched candles.  


There's Coco Lobo, Jungle Kiss, White Palm (which I am told is the best seller so far), Mango Beachwood ... and the list goes on and on !  You can check out the full product line here.  There was no way I was going to be able to evaluate all eighteen of the tropics candle line, so I settled on the one that I thought smelled the most interesting, even if it was a relaunch from last year: Tropical Spice.

When I was in the store I couldn't believe the cold throw the candle had!  Was it really a mix of coconut and vanilla and a huge slug of CINNAMON?  I had to get it home to check it out.  Once I did, though, and my nose cleared from smelling the many different variants in the store, I realized I was wrong!

My nose had been polluted by all of the other scents wafting around me!  Home and in a fragrantless environment, the cold throw showed its true colors.  Vanilla and cinnamon.  No coconut whatsoever, that must've been from another candle.  Talk about disappointing!  Five bucks says they've just taken one of their seasonal holiday scents and reconceptualized it (new wax color, new name, new label, old scent).  Oh well and ho-hum, life goes on!

I still pursued the smelling of the candle, even though I was disappointed by the uninteresting cold throw of vanilla, cinnamon and a tiny bit of sweet-bubble gum at the back (which keeps it from smelling Christmas-y).

There isn't too much to report on the hot throw.  It was a vanilla-cinnamon scent that struggled to over power the scent of wax when burned for over an hour.  Common and boring - I was so wrong when I picked it up in the store!  Such is life, I guess, good thing I was less disappointed with the other candle I bought.

Launched at the same time as the tropical line is BBW's more floral themed line of candles.  These variants include Lilac Blossom, Flower Shop, First Bloom, Spring and a few others.  I picked up Green Grass, which is a new launch this season.

The cold throw is a very green fragrance with hints of dry grass under a fresh watery cucumber with aspects of clean white floral.  Very pleasant indeed.  The hot throw is linear and scented the room with clean, bright cucumber and grassy-green scents.  This candle was definitely better formulated than the Tropical Spice, as was proven by its superior hot throw.

Assessment? Green Grass is definitely preferred to Tropical Spice, but if neither take your fancy, don't worry - there is no need to decide between these two!  There are still twenty-three other newly launched/re-launched candles to choose from!  Go get smelling!

New August Launches: Candy and Black Dahlias from Prada and Givenchy

Since I have a ravenous sweet tooth we'll begin with the sweets - Prada Candy.  I was very excited about this fragrance when I first came across the ad.  It was sassy, vibrant and fun, and with descriptors like 'Feeling gay, reckless, too.  Care free mind, all the time', who wouldn't want to enliven their life with a little bit of Prada Candy?

It is sold exclusively at Neiman Marcus, so as soon as I could I hustled to the nearest one and tried it out myself.  And the assessment?  It didn't make me feel overly gay or reckless, I'm sorry to say, and this was because the perfume was nothing more than ordinary.  It opens with sweet top notes (caramel the marketing claims, but that really just means ethyl maltol) and then moves into deep musks with a base of the powdery vanillic facets of benzoin.  The dry down is very beautifully rich due to the fabulous mixture of musk and benzoin.  While not as dynamic as the ad implies, if you like a sweet fragrance with a rich, gourmand oriental bottom, you may think about picking this one up.


While I was at Neiman Marcus I thought I would take the chance to sample another fragrance that launched there exclusively: Dahlia Noir by Givenchy.  Words that characterize this fragrance are dark, imaginative, mysterious, seductive:

Does the fragrance live up to its marketing?  It is definitely a deep fragrance that is not to be worn lightly.  You can immediately smell the top notes of rose, which are entwined with the heavy, multifaceted middle and bottom notes of iris, powder, patchouli, sandalwood and tonka bean.

Givenchy claims to have created a 'Flower Fatale' in their chypre floral fragrance, but mostly I just think they've create a 'Flower Soixante Plus' - a fragrance for the over 60s.

Both Prada Candy and Dahlia Noir by Givenchy have interesting aspects, but overall neither provides anything new nor exciting to the fragrance world.  I guess I'll have to keep waiting for my new fall fragrance ... remind me again, when does the Tom Ford Violet Blonde come out?

How to make a trench coat sexy

Launching 1st September from Interparfums and luxury fashion house Burberry is the new feminine fine fragrance:  Burberry Body

Judging from the marketing and its 'striking and sensual' tones this fragrance will be no light, sweet affair, but something more hot and heavy...

A heady white floral or seductive oriental?

Press releases have given no hints of the notes or actual scent of the new fragrance -
We wait with bated breath to see if this launch is as new and exciting as it purports itself to be.