CANDLE SPOTLIGHT: Pink Petal Tea Cake

Product: candle
Area used in:  living room
Time Period: mid February -

Description: Tea for two becomes even sweeter with the fragrance of a perfect pink petal tea cake made from garden rose petals, freshly baked cake and vanilla glaze.

I bought this candle back when it was still testing; it was one of the many test scents that I bought thru Customer Relations months ago. This was definitely a case of curiosity killing the cake - I'm not a fan of floral scents, especially rose and I can't stand bakery scents...so why the hell did I buy it?! Curiousity and intrigue, plain simple. A combo of rose and cake... how would that smell?! Frosted Cupcake and Flower Shop or Garden Freesia?! I had no clue! The prospect of this one going wide was uncertain for the longest time and there were lots of rumors about it...it failed and wasn't going wide, it was indeed going to wide, it was going to go wide around Mother's Day, it was going to be the actual Mother's Day candle instead of Tokyo Petals...and so on and so forth. It did finally go wide and I could kick myself for being so impatient and not just waiting til it hit stores. Honestly, I wasn't all that impressed with this one; I've only burned it a handful of times. Had I bought in the store, I would've brought it back and exchanged it for something else.

Performance-wise, it's just ok. The flames were never really high and the pool was unpredictable - sometimes it pooled out after awhile, sometimes it canyoned. And throw is sooooooo weak. While in my living room, I would have stood over the candle, nostrils over the flames, to smell anything. I burned it once in my bedroom, I got a hint of fragrance wafting around the room.

Scent-wise, again was a bit of disappointment; to me, it just didn't smell like what it was supposed to. Honestly, I don't get much rose action. Instead of rose, I kept getting strawberry but not a fresh strawberry but rather an artificially sweetened bakery strawberry. At first, the scent kinda reminded me a frozen treat my mom used to buy me as a treat; it was frozen strawberry cream yogurt in a plastic tube, like Gogurt. Then after a several sniffs, it finally dawned it what it smelled like - Strawberry CremeSavers Lifesaver candy! Almost exactly!!! And it was driving me nuts cuz most folks that I talked with about this candle swore that they smelled rose and only a few agreed that they smelled strawberries as well. Then a Facebook buddy of mine (shout-out to Mehrab!) pointed out that on the website it pointed out the "wild strawberry" was one of the key notes. So it turns out my nose wasn't playin tricks on me! I was right!

Now granted, I much prefer the smell of strawberries over roses, but again the name of the candle is "Pink Petal Tea Cake" so I expect to smell petals! With that said, there is a small hint of floral chillin the background, like tea rose and freesia. But the floral is not like a garden/floral shop floral but more of sweetened bakery floral....think "rosewater/rosewater syrup" , both of which are used to flavor confections. And speakin of cake, the cake note is very faint. To me as a whole, PPTC smells more like a strawberry shortcake with cut artificially sweetened cut strawberries on top in a sweetened rosewater glaze.

Personally, PPTC is kinduva a fail. First off, the throw is just too light. Secondly, it doesn't smell like what the name suggests; it should've just been called Strawberry Shortcake. If this blend was more balanced and the throw was 10x stronger, I could've gotten behind this. This had the potential of bein a runaway hit this spring but instead it's mediocre and forgettable at best. Honestly folks, don't waste your time!