THAT'S SO TEST SCENT: Sugarberry Spritzer

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

Description: Offer your guests a special treat - a sugarberry spritzer. This springy, effervescent blend captures the fun and festivity of a garden party in sparkling water, sugarberries and elderflowers

So out of all of the Garden Party candles that were testing, I was the most intrigued with this one. First of all, I dunno about y'all but I get super excited when BBW releases something that isn't a repackage. Moreover I get even more excited when a scent has notes that have never been used before. Now with that said, the note that really jumped out at me was elderflower, which as far as I know BBW has never used that in a scent before. I LOVE elderflower, particularly elderflower liqueur..especially St. Germain - sooooo good in cocktails, champagne, white wine and..well, spritzers. So intrigued was I with SBS that I broke my rule about not buying candles without a preliminary first sniff. I attempted to order this thru Customer Relations but they didn't have it in their warehouse so I ordered it off Ebay.

*sigh

I'll be honest..when I first sniffed it after it arrived, I wasn't that impressed. I dunno exactly what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Not that it stank or anything, it was just a bit on the blah side and sooo light. It sat in my candle bin for awhile as I wasn't particularly very excited to burn it. Then recently I brought it out to mix things up a bit as I was getting kinda bored with my Cranberry Pear Bellini. So, umm, yeah...

So burn-wise, it was ok. No mushroom tops and the flames weren't very high but they still got the job done; there was always a consistent deep and even wax pool. After the mid-range point, the wax started getting more and more cruddy. This is the only colored candle besides Beach Cabana and Champagne Toast where the wax changed quite noticeably.

not cute!

Throw-wise, this was stronger than I thought it would be. Because the cold throw was so light, I assumed the hot throw would be as well; it surprisingly wasn't. Don't get too excited, this candle will not choke and knock you out, not by any means. I'd say the throw is medium-ish; this is definitely a candle to burn in a smaller room or else the scent would get completely lost.



And now the scent...It's definitely unique. I'm thinking BBW was trying to make a more feminine spring version of Cranberry Pear Bellini. It's a cute idea in theory but the execution was a bit of a disappointment. The scent just doesn't quite live up to it description. To say that this is supposed to be a "spritzer", the scent doesn't come across as a drink of any kind but rather a perfume or body spray. "Sparkling water?" Yeah no, not so much. There's little to no fizziness or bubbliness in this scent whatsoever. Now I have noooooo idea what a sugarberry (aka hackberry) is supposed to taste or smell like. I assume it's a light sweet scent and that BBW used the note to sort of mimic white wine the same way BBW uses blackcurrants in their wine/champagne/bellini scents. There's a definite borderline generic berry scent in the blend. To me, this makes the scent very...purple. You know how some scents you may associate with a certain color, like something pink might roses or strawberries, yellow with bananas or lemons, etc. Things with a generic grape or berries are usually purple and that's what this scent makes think of. And now the note that I was the most excited about..elderflower. Elderflower, especially elderflower liqueur is hard to describe scent-wise. It's kinda like Moscato mixed with chamomile. I get the elderflower note but it's quite faint, totally overpowered by the sugarberry note.... not that your average BBW'er would be able pick that note out anyway, just that there is some slight floral action.

SBS is..cute. It's sweet, it's calming and it's very feminine. This would be perfect for a lady's boudoir or bathroom (like I said earlier, this is meant for a smaller room). However, this is nothing exciting or impressive, certainly not buy-in-bulk-worthy. Honestly, if I bought this candle in the store as opposed to Evil-bay, I'd bring it back to exchange. Actually truth be told, if I had actually sniffed this in the store, I wouldn't have bought at all.

I dunno if this candle or if the Garden Party line in general is going wide. If it does, SBS is worth a try. If not, don't waste the time, effort and money to get this off Evil-bay like I did!