After seeing that Pure Integrity’s strawberry wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, I started to think my real strawberry candle was a pipe dream.  I had a shipment from Candles of Eden on it’s way, but figured their strawberry would be a miss too.

When I got my package, I ripped it open, took off the lid to my jar and sniffed...I wasn’t thrilled.  My first reaction was that it had a strange fake smell to it.  I lit it anyway to see what would happen because sometimes a candle will smell differently when you burn it compared to when you just sniff it cold.  When the scent started to fill the air, I couldn’t believe it...I was smelling real juicy strawberries! Candles of Eden did it!  This is EXACTLY what my car smells like when I’m on my way home from the produce market with my flats of ripe, succulent strawberries.  Finally my search was over.

The description of Freshly Picked Strawberries from the Candles of Eden web site is right on...

“This is a true authentic strawberry with no cream or anything else added. Just strong strawberry goodness.”

You know when you're eating strawberries and some are lighter in color and are missing that complete strawberry taste your after, but some are darker in color and have that perfect, rich strawberry flavor?  Well this candle smells like those perfect strawberries we all love to bite into.  When I burn this candle, it smells like I'm sitting right next to a big bowl of those juicy, red strawberries that are "just-right."

This strawberry isn’t overly sweet.  I think that’s why I like it so much.  Looking back, I think the other companies missed the mark because their strawberry scents are a little too sweet compared to the real thing.  Real strawberries are known to be one of the fruits that are lowest in sugar so I think my sweet theory makes sense.

Before I placed my Candles of Eden order, I emailed them to let them know I was on a hunt for an authentic strawberry and was interested in trying theirs.  Rosalynn, the candlemaker of the company, sounded pretty confident about Freshly Picked Strawberries and told me she went on a long search to find a strawberry that smelled good enough to sell to her customers. After I burned my candle and saw how realistic it was, my curiosity got the best of me so I asked Rosalynn how many strawberry fragrance oils she tried before she found this one.  She said, “We actually tried approximately 7 other strawberries before deciding to use this one.”

Wow! I’m so glad Rosalynn wasn’t satisfied with a less-than-par strawberry scent that Yankee and Bridgewater seem to be ok with.  In terms of a very authentic strawberry scent, she obviously picked a winner.

One last thing I want to mention before I wrap this up...

As my Freshly Picked Strawberry candle burned down, the scent throw seemed to weaken.  I asked Rosalynn about it and she told me to store my candle for two days with the lid on and then light it again.  I never knew this before, but she said the longer candles sit with the lid on them, the stronger they’ll be.  Rosalynnn told me this is called “curing.”  She makes her candles fresh for each order and allows the candles to cure for a couple days before sending them out to the customer, but sometimes they may need to “cure” a little at home in order for the fragrance oil and the wax to truly become one. I took her advice and put the lid on my candle and waited a couple days.  Once it had enough time to cure, I lit my strawberry candle and it’s delicious scent filled the air in my room once again.  Cool, it worked!

If you try Freshly Picked Strawberries or any other candle from Candles of Eden, keep the curing idea in mind if your scents seem to weaken after burning it for a while.  I’m so happy to learn something new about improving the throw of candles in general! Give this a try with any candles you have from other brands that seem to be on the weak side.  It just might help. Of course I can’t promise you it will “revive” all of your weak smelling candles since some brands are just known to have weak scent throws, but it’s worth a shot.  I’m making sure now that all the lids are on my candles in my candle chest.

My Final Thoughts on “The Battle of the Strawberries”

I had a lot of fun doing this, but I can honestly say after surrounding myself with the smell of strawberries for the past couple weeks, I don’t think I’ll ever want to smell another strawberry candle again...he he.

If you’re looking for an authentic juicy strawberry candle, I obviously recommend you try Freshly Picked Strawberries from Candles of Eden. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.  There is NO comparison between this strawberry and Yankee’s “Sweet Strawberry” fragrance.  Go ahead and compare for yourself...Candles of Eden’s Strawberry wins by a mile.  If you’re looking for a huge scent throw with Freshly Picked Strawberries, be sure to order it in a large container because we all know...the bigger the container, the bigger the throw.  

Shipping from Candles of Eden does take a while, so be prepared to wait, but they send you email notices throughout the process to update you on the status of your order.  I don’t really like waiting for my candles because I’m pretty impatient when I place any order online, but once I get them, I realize they were definitely worth the wait.

I really like this idea of comparing the same scent from different candle brands and I hope you do to.  It makes for a LONG review, but I think it’s probably pretty helpful so you don’t have to run around spending money trying the same scent from different brands. Christina's inspired now and will be comparing watermelon scents for you this summer.  Also, when we get out of “fruit season” and start reviewing the cozier scents in the Fall, Christina and I are planning a “Battle of the Vanillas” review which I’m really excited about since Vanilla is the most popular candle fragrance of all.

Until next time, have fun eating and smelling those delicious strawberries!

Carolyn  :-)