Why Scented Candles?
You can find them almost everywhere; pretty candles with pretty fragrances, from inexpensive dollar-store varieties to elaborate works of art that you'd probably never dream of burning. They're not a rarity, they're not exotic or unusual. But did you ever stop to wonder why they're so popular?
Nothing is quite as relaxing as having candles flickering in a quiet room, creating an ambiance that harkens of times gone by. Candles reach out to us and say "There's time...no rush", and in their flickering, soft light we gain a sense of being able to let go of some of the stress and truly just breathe again. Candlelight enhances a more intimate mood in your life, casting living, dancing shadows around a room, on faces, splintering across objects that can otherwise seem mundane, and creating a little bit of magic in our hectic day-to-day world. Lighting a candle is almost a ritual that says "This time is for me, and I'm accepting and celebrating that". That's a powerful statement in a time when we're pushed to be selfless and focus on everyone but ourselves.
The fragrances in our candles are just as important as the candles themselves. They can help us energize or relax, create excitement or soothe us, bring back happy memories, or bittersweet ones. Why? Because of our five senses, it's said that the olfactory sense is perhaps tied the most strongly to memory and emotion. I once watched a man moved almost to tears when he smelled one of my honeysuckle candles. He was immediately transported back in time, to memories of his childhood, playing in his grandmother's back yard amidst her honeysuckle vines. One single sniff of a candle evoked that.
Our sense of smell is often overlooked and taken for granted. Think of all the things you'd miss, if you could no longer smell anything. The morning's coffee, bacon cooking, a loved-one's perfume, the smell of a baby right after their nap, the smell of a freshly baked apple pie, the season's first flowers. I can't take those small but important things for granted, because I live with someone who lost his sense of smell due to Parkinson's disease. Even after years of this, the words "Oh wow, did you smell that?" seem to just trip off my lips, and it's a little heartbreaking to remember anew that no, he can't, and no, he won't ever again smell that. Without the sense of smell to help trigger emotions and memories, it's a bit difficult for him to experience those.
All the different fragrances have a place and a memory and an emotion they bring to the forefront of your mind, influencing your mood, sometimes enhancing it. A candle scented with the smell of fresh grass in January can remind you of the coming spring; a pumpkin-scented candle can reinvigorate the excitement and anticipation you used to feel as a child, when autumn approached, and Halloween was just around the corner. Candles made with food-fragrances; orange chiffon cake, or caramel apples, or apple pie, can remind us of childhood moments when we came home or went to our grandparents' houses, and were welcomed by the aroma of those goodies. Flower fragrances can bring thoughts of spring and summer, and the experience of walking in a garden or park where all the different flowers combine with the scent of warm earth, to raise our spirits.
Those memory cues and emotional responses enrich our lives in small, subtle ways that you may not even realize in the moment. The smell of a baby-powder scented candle can immediately bring a smile to my face, because it triggers thoughts of when my children were babies, fresh from their bath, all sweet and clean and powdered, ready to be held and cherished and rocked to sleep. I smile, I reminisce, and for a few moments, I'm transported emotionally to a very sweet, tender place...and stress, worries and cares seem to just melt away, replaced by serenity and happiness. To me, and to many other people, that experience is priceless, and that's why we seek out these marvelous scented candles. They're tickets to our memories of the best times of our lives.
Our candles are created by hand, not factory poured on an assembly line. Each wick is hand-placed, each candle individually scented and crafted. Hundreds of hours of testing and retesting have gone into learning the art of creating candles that will give the softly flickering light, the fragrances that will evoke emotional responses and the enjoyment gained from an intimate, peaceful environment where you can read, or just relax, or meditate in calm serenity.
If you haven't given our candles a try, perhaps it's time you did. Your ticket to nostalgia is waiting for you.
