Vanilla Candles

Vanilla from Beanpod Candles

Just recently I decided to give this company a go to see what they’re made of.  Among other scents, I bought a pack of their Vanilla scented soy beads for this review.  For those of you who don’t know, soy beads are Beanpod’s version of tarts... they’re little scented spheres of wax that you sprinkle right in your tart burner.  What makes them so cool is you can mix different scents together to make your own unique scent blends.  Here’s an example... Pour some Apple Pie scented beads in your burner with some Whipped Cream beads...yum!  I don’t think it can get much better for us candle lovers.  :-)  Fun, fun!

Ok, onto my Vanilla soy beads.  Here’s the scent description from Beanpod’s site:

“By the 19th century, vanilla had established itself as the most popular flavor in the ice cream industry.  Our Vanilla candle is creamy, rich and delicious.”

I’m not blown away by this scent like I am with some of the other vanillas I’ve tried for this review.  It just doesn’t have that special “wow factor” I’m after.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice vanilla.  It doesn’t smell artificial, perfumy or anything, but it just doesn’t impress me when it’s in my burner.  There’s something missing.  I think it’s that warmth that most of my favorite vanillas have as well as a little sweetness and some creaminess.  Also, I'm definitely smelling some coconut in this scent and I'm not too thrilled about it.  To me, coconut doesn't belong in a straight vanilla fragrance.

The scent throw is also influencing my opinion big time.  Every time I melt these beads, I just can’t get a strong throw.  I can really only smell the overall fragrance when I walk right by my burner and sometimes not even then.  I’m curious if it’s just me or if some of you have had this same experience with this scent.  The strangest thing is, in the middle of the night this past week I couldn’t sleep so I came downstairs to work.  I had been melting my beads in my living room for a few hours before I went to bed that night.  When I walked downstairs, I felt like I walked into a cloud of vanilla.  I could finally smell it!  Strange.

Like I said, from what I can smell this passes as an “ok” vanilla but if you’re after the utopia of vanilla scents, I would skip this one.   I do have other scented soy beads that I’ll be reviewing soon from Beanpod like Pomegranate and Cranberry Clove.  So far they’ve had better throws than this Vanilla so I’m definitely not giving up on these cute little beads.

Warm Vanilla Infusion from Village Candle

Even though I had plenty of vanilla scents in my arsenal for this review, believe it or not, I went candle shopping with my mom last weekend to see if I could find more!!  (I know, I’m nuts)  I wanted to get a few more vanillas from some of the bigger brands since they’re so readily available to all of us.  During my search, I found some Simmerblends from Village Candle so I picked one up in Warm Vanilla Infusion.  The description for this scent is:

“A soothing infusion of cream and vanilla is warmed to perfection in this comforting confection.”

According to Village Candle’s web site, they have two other plain vanilla scents... French Vanilla and Creamy Vanilla.  I kind of wished they were available in the gift shop we were in because I could’ve compared all three, but a girl can only take so much vanilla smelling, so I’m glad I only have one at this point.

I like the way Village Candle packages their tarts (or Simmerblends).  They come in 4 breakaway cubes for $1.50 each which I think is a pretty fair.  I broke off two of the cubes and put them in my burner to melt.  At first I started to smell an interesting version of vanilla that I thought was pretty good, but then as the scent started to fill my living room, I noticed an underlying perfume smell.  That’s one of my “candle pet-peeves” so I turned my burner off and opened the windows to air out the house.  I’ve only tried one or two things from Village, so I won’t give up just yet but I’m probably gonna toss my other two cubes in this scent.