Types of Fragrances For Candles
Candles were originally used for light only, made from unscented tallow or beeswax. Eventually, innovators added berries and oils to create scented candles. Today there are hundreds of fragrances, with each brand creating their own specific scents, using different grades of materials, waxes, and amount and type of fragrance. Does this Spark an idea?
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Holiday and Seasonal
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Most people use candles during the holidays for mood lighting, to add enticing scents to their home or to cover odors when visitors arrive. Popular holiday-themed scents are gingerbread, evergreen tree, mulberry, apple cider, eggnog, nutmeg, peppermint and pumpkin pie. There are also many popular nonspecific scents meant to smell like the holidays or certain seasons. Many popular holiday candles have names like "Holiday," "Winter," "Snow Angel," "Candy Hearts" and "Country Lemonade."
Food
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Apple pie is popular food scent. Many food-scented candles are also used as holiday-scented candles; after all, most of the scents people associate with the holidays are from food. Popular food fragrances are sugar cookie, apple, cinnamon, pear, blueberry muffin, cherry pie, birthday cake, brown sugar, butterscotch, coconut and coffee. Mixed scents, such as "Citrus Breeze" and "Orange Dreamsicle," are also popular.
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Berries
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Besides holiday berries, such as mulberry and mistletoe, many berry scents are popular for year-round use. For example, strawberry, elderberry, raspberry, blackberry, cherry and currant.
Flowers and Nature
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Floral and nature-based fragrances are comforting and sweet, and make great everyday scents. Most flower scents are bold, so as to make the area where you burn the candle smell as much like the outdoors as an inside room can. There are many vague "natural" blends, usually a mixture of flowers and spices. "Summer Breezes," "Rain," "Field Grass," "Pink Sands," "Garden Path," "Sweet Honeysuckle" and "Sandalwood" are some mixture names. Other common scents are lavender, lilac, hydrangea, lily, rose, jasmine, carnation, cherry blossom, gardenia and freesia.
Spices
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Spices are softly and subtly fragrant and can be mixed with any type of candle scent. Spices are usually mixed with an appropriate food or floral scent. The most common spices in candles are vanilla, cinnamon, sage, ginger, clove, nutmeg and basil. According to the National Candle Association, vanilla and vanilla-based scents are the most popular.
Aromatherapy
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Aromatherapy candles contain essential oils, which are concentrated essences gleaned from a process of steaming plants. The National Candle Association says that most candles are not true aromatherapy candles because there is not enough oil in the candle to be absorbed into the body to create the effects of conventional aromatherapy. Most candles are soothing and relaxing because of the ambient aroma they produce, but not necessarily therapeutic. The most commonly used oils in aromatherapy candles are eucalyptus, lavender, mint, citronella and rosemary.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit candle image by Fotocie from Fotolia.com sweet apple-pie image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
