Aloha!

Hello everyone!

My name is Jacqui and I am here to share my love for things that smell good! This is a lifetime love, as I can't remember ever not being interested in fragrance. From perfumes and lotions, to candles and fragrance oils, to tarts and incense, I am fascinated with it all. I can't walk into a store without smelling the candles or spritzing myself with perfume, and I can't be at home without at least some sort of pleasing scent wafting through the air. This blog will focus primarily on scented candles and tarts, but from time to time there may be a bit of other random sweet-smelling goodness thrown in as well.

The wax community is primarily centered on youtube, and I've toyed with the idea of starting a channel but as I am already a nail blogger, starting a blog seems like the next logical step for me. That's not to say that I won't be doing some videos, because I will, but I'd like to keep my blog as the main hub of this endeavor. I love to write and it comes much more naturally to me than speaking in front of a camera does. Plus, I really like the idea of having a written record of everything that I've melted so this is a great way to keep a log of what I've liked, what I haven't liked and so on.

Be prepared for brutal honesty here. If I don't like something, you will hear about it. If I'm over the moon in love with something, you'll hear about it. If I've changed my mind on something I previously liked or didn't like, you'll hear about it. My goal for this blog is to not only keep an account of what I've melted for my own purposes, but to connect with other wax lovers and help each other find new scents and new vendors that we perhaps wouldn't have tried before.

For my first entry on this blog, I'd like to talk a little bit about my love for wax in general. I've found several wax tags on youtube so I decided to pick a handful questions from a few different ones and come up with my own. I therefore tag everyone who actually reads this! Hope you enjoy learning a bit about my wax habits.

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THE WAX TAG

1. How did you get into loving wax?

As stated in the introduction, I can't remember ever not being into wax. My mom likes to tell the story of taking me into a place that sold Yankee Candle when I four years old and I had to smell each and every one. I got my first tart warmer around the age of seven, my first tart being Yankee French Vanilla. From then on, I was hooked. Yankee Candle was the most significant scented candle brand as I was growing up but I later branched onto online vendors when I was around 20. Back in those days, the popular vendors were Mick's Wicks, Panhandle Potions, House of Tarts and several other now-defunct brands. However, there were two brands that were my favorites back then that still are around today - Candles from the Keeping Room and Nene's Kitchen Melts. When I got back into online vendors, CFTKR was my very first purchase and Nene's soon followed. Plus about 20 or so other brands ;-D

2. Do you prefer tarts of candles, overall?

I like both for different reasons. I love the glow and ambiance that candles give off, but I love the ease and scent throw of melting tarts. I lots of both in my collection, and I always plan to have both.

3. Favorite candle brand? Favorite tart brand?

My favorite candle brands are Yankee Candle and Bath and Body Works. I know Yankee gets mixed reviews in the wax community, but I have great luck with their stuff and I love their scents. Bath and Body Works (a.k.a. Slatkin, a.k.a White Barn) candles are great because they're always on sale and the scent throw is consistently good. BBW doesn't have as much a variety as Yankee but what they do have is generally pretty fantastic.

Tarts? Well that's a whole different ballgame. I have ordered from about 20 vendors at this point but as many of them are still curing, I've only yet tried a handful. My preliminary list of favorite vendors are Candles from the Keeping Room, Front Porch, Beezy Tarts, The Bathing Garden, and Lasting Scent Candles. Others that are still curing but I can see becoming favorite vendors are Orchid Lake, Ten Digit Creations, Sweet Fixations and The Kissing Booth. Maybe one day if I ever get my Sniff My Tarts order they will join my list of favorites as well =D I plan on doing an extensive favorites list once I've tried more vendors.

4. Which vendor do you want to order from next?

Lil' Kitchen Candles! They open back up tomorrow and I'm so excited to place an order with them because I've heard great things. I'm also eagerly awaiting the reopening of Hayley's Heavenly Scents as there's a few scents from her that I am dying to try!

5. How many warmers do you own?

Probably around 15. Many of them are Scentsy warmers because for a few years I melted mainly Scentsy. However, I do have a variety of tea light, lightbulb and hot plate warmers of various wattages in my stash.

6. How many warmers do you have going at once?

I usually have around 3-4 warmers going at once. 2-3 on the main floor and 1 going either upstairs or in the basement. I've been trying to be more consistent about having them going on floors other than the main floor but I usually forget and generally only melt consistently on the main floor. I'm working on it though!

7. How do you organize your wax?

I have a closet for my candles, and those are organized by vendor and then by season. I have mostly Yankee Candles so those are organized into spring/summer scents, fall/winter scents, and every day scents. My Slatkins all fit onto one shelf and are organized by season. Then the rest of the brands are on one shelf and are just organized by height.

My wax tarts are organized by scent category. I have several bins that I store them in that are all labeled for their particular category. Those bins are stored in another closet. I store by scent category instead of by vendor because I don't like my scents to all run together. For example, if I have a delicate fruity scent, I don't want it sitting by a strong minty scent and absorbing some of its fragrance. It also makes it easier for when I'm ordering, I can look and see that I'm stocked on fruity scents but running low on my spicy bakery scents.

8. Do you prefer spring/summer or fall/winter scents?

This is a tough question. I tend to have more fall/winter scents in my stash but I love every season of fragrance!  I do tend to start melting seasonal scents way before the season begins, however. For example, I started melting fall scents over the summer and although it's only January, I'm craving spring scents already.

9. What are your top favorite scents and top least favorite scents?

Another tough question. I pretty much like everything. No really, I do. I love bakery scents, I love floral scents, I love fresh scents, I love spicy scents. I'll try to break it down based on notes that I particularly like or don't like. There are exceptions to everything though and even though I may list something as a dislike, there may be a particular scent with that note that I do like. Anyways, here we go:

Favorites: Cinnamon/strong spicy scents, banana, coconut, lemon, grapefruit, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, Froot Loops, Serendipity, Pink Sugar, Blue Sugar, bakery (cakes, cookies, etc.), DONUT SCENTS! I loooove donut scents, Sugar Corn Pudding, melons, cherry and Wildberry Mousse.

Not-so-favorites: Zucchini bread - still trying to like it but I'm thinking it's not going to happen, earthy/patchouli scents, fake grape scents (*gags*), coffee scents, laundry detergent scents, anything overly generic or that smells like bathroom air freshener.

10. If you could only burn one candle or scent for the rest of the year, what would it be?

This is impossible! It would probably be something cinnamon-y because I feel like cinnamon scents can work all year round, moving from a holiday scent to a nice kitchen scent in the warmer months.

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And that is that. If you're still reading, kudos to you! Thanks for stopping by and I will be back soon with hauls, reviews and much, much more!