RANT OF THE DAY: Scents I am sick to death of seeing

So it goes without saying that since the great and powerful Slatkin bid a (probably not so) fond farewell to BBW, the quality has gone downhill. Gone are the days when we could expect a slew of newness each season. Nowadays we just get the same ol shit over and over and friggin over, this year being the worst offender with folks calling 2015 "the year of repackages". It wouldn't be so bad if old scents from 2012 and beyond were being brought back in rotation but nope it's just the same scents that BBW keeps pushin on us ad nauseam. That said, here are some scents (repackaged or re-rotated/rereleased) that I loathe seeing in stores from least annoying to absolute most.


Gourmet Espresso/Winter Café/Harvest Coffee/Espresso Bar - Now don't get me wrong, I really enjoy this scent a lot but not enough for it to be repackaged with different names every season. Keep the name "Gourmet Espresso" and either keep it as a core scent or put in a collection that works...and not Fresh Picked! Or better yet, come up with a new coffee scent entirely - mocha, hazelnut, French vanilla, Irish crème, cinnamon or a latte that actually smells like a latte

Tiki Beach - Even though I like Tiki Beach, we've seen it consistently since '11. Instead bring back Coco Lobo or Island Colada or Coconut Water for once

Villa Bergamot - While this was a very lovely cologney scent, I don't think it needs to be repackaged. It worked in the Italian collection as a spring scent, not so much as a fall scent - Bergamot Woods...really?! What's woodsy about it?!

Autumn Night - Despite the shitty burn, I enjoyed this updated version of Autumn Day; I was not a fan of AD but I really liked AN. But then BBW fucked it up by repackaging it twice back to back right after its debut. Neither repackage made any sense; there was nothing about AN that was intriguing and opulent nor did it make me think of Burl Ives. Keep that shit in the fall where it belongs, I don't wanna see that mess at any other time of the year!

Harvest Gathering - Seriously, what was the point of HG? We already have Leaves and Cranberry Woods, two of the most perfect fruity fall scents ever....why combine the two? That's basically what it smelled like. HG was just the most generic, blandest, and blah fall scent ever - the basic bitch of fall scents!

Farmstand Apple - I don't care what anyone says, FA is the WORST apple scent ever! Like the aforementioned HG, it's just so generic smelling! It's just a typical "apple" scent you find in home fragrance, i.e. Glade/Renuzit/Febreeze. And the addition of that oak note just makes FA smell off and weird. There were so many better apple scents in the past -  Country Apple, Autumn Apple, Gingham Apple etc; I dunno why BBW insists on bringin FA back year after year. Actually, do we necessarily need an apple scent? Why not change things up and bring a different fall fruit instead, like pear. Let's have Pear or Heirloom Pear back? Or a plum scent, like Plum Amber Wine?

Pineapple Mango - PM is so BEYOOOOOND basic, period! Seriously, why is this scent still around especially when there are so many better tropical mango-y scents out there. Nobody even pays it any attention anymore. Even BBW doesn't know what to do with it; remember that time when it was sold as fall scent in the Fresh Picked collection? Really? This scent can definitely disappear and it won't be missed at all.

Pumpkin Caramel Swirl/ Cinnamon Caramel Swirl - If this scent isn't strictly mass appeal, then I don't know what is! It was a lazy unimaginative scent made strictly to make all the sweetie lovers' coochies explode. If it were more high end like Nutmeg & Spice or Kitchen Spice, that would be one thing..but it ain't - it's LAME! And aren't we assaulted with enough caramel scents? Is the addition of cinnamon supposed to make it more unique? I don't think so. Furthermore, pick a friggin season - don't tell me it's a pumpkin-y fall scent one moment and then tell me holiday treat for Christmastime the next!

Holiday - I honestly don't get why this scent even exists, what's the point of it? We already have Tis the Season which is Christmas in a jar, there really is no comparison! I never liked this scent - it just smells so old and ancient; it makes me think of old dusty cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations...and not in a good way - just dusty and musty! How about we take Holiday out of the equation and bring back Spice or Orange Clove instead.

Spice Apple Toddy - Again, what is the point of this scent? It's straightup Leaves! It's watered down and has a hint of brown liquor but essentially it's still Leaves! Furthermore, we've seen SAT consistently since 2010-2011, it's not that great of scent to bring it back year after year.

Hot Buttered Rum - Real talk...HBR is fucking gross!!! Hell, the actual drink is disgusting and the candle is equally as disgusting! And like SAT, BBW brings HBR back year after year after friggin year! HBR is just thick gloopy diabetes-y pukeyness and it needs go. For the sake of changing it up, let's replace with an actual GOOD hot beverage drink, something people actually drink...

Peppermint Mocha...Egg Nog Cheer..hell just replace it with Winter Latte

Cinnamon and Clove Buds - I LOATHE this scent. Now I enjoy a good spicy scent during the holiday as much as the next gurl, but CaCB is just too much. It's like huffin a jar of red hot Hot Tamales or Atomic Fireballs. Just bring back Slatkin's Spice please and thanks

Marshmallow Fireside - Everybody LOVES this scent and I don't get it; seriously I'm askin, what is the appeal?! It's basically Fireside with marshmallow instead of leather, why does this scent make everybody lose their shit? Here's my problem with MF. First of all, since '13 MF has been a repackage of Summertime S'mores from the Lakeside collection which was a watered down smokier imitation of the original MF. Secondly this scent has been popping up in the winter...IT'S NOT A FRIGGIN WINTER SCENT!  Who the hell roasts marshmallows in the dead of winter? Bring back the original MF and keep that mess in the fall.

Merry Cookie - Another fan favorite that everybody goes nuts for and I don't understand why. It's a boring scent PERIOD! And, like with most vanilla scents, over time it just gets waxy and plastic smelling. There are so many better holiday bakery scent options - Frosted Gingerbread/Pumpkin Gingerbread, Sugar & Spice, Chestnut Roasting/Chestnut Glazed Croissant, Snickerdoodle. I honestly don't think MC would be missed

Vanilla Bean Noel/Winter Candy Apple - I've said before and I'll say it again - I'm not a big fan of candles based on bodycare and I think these two in particular are the biggest offenders...in short, they suck! VBN has the same issue as all the other vanilla scents, the scent turns. And WCA just smells like a bag of gummy bears. And what exactly is a winter candy apple, is that actually a thing? Keep them as body care but not as candles. Instead bring back these classic confections...

Mint Chocolate... Marshmallow Peppermint....Ribbon Candy...Holiday Gumdrops... Candied Sugar Plum

Watermelon Lemonade - Ok, I get it - everybody and their grandma LOOOOVES this scent. I've had it before...it's aiight, certainly nothing special. Definitely not special enough to be in SIX different collections - Lakeside, Sweet Shoppe, Garden Party, Summer Sips, White Barn Market and now Sweet Tie and Screen Doors. I mean really, enough is friggin enough. Either keep it around as a core scent, seasonal or otherwise, or give it a break. Please stop putting WL in every single spring/summer collection!

Paris Daydream - I never understood BBW's obsession with this scent; PD has been repackaged and reformulated soooo many times over the years. First it was Flirt in the Good Life collection, then it became Paris Daydream in that random French collection, then BBW fiddled around with it and made Oceanside and it became a summer scent, then they fiddled around with it again and made Sparkling Icicles for winter, then PD was back with a vengeance in various iterations of the Destination collection, then it become the official Mother's Day candle in '13 (they even said in the tagline "If you enjoyed Paris Daydream/Sparkling Icicles...) and now it's been repackaged as Fresh ~ Spring Blue Skies in the Happy Home collection (this is the only repackage that made sense) Ever heard of the expression "beating a dead horse with a stick". Well that horse has been beatened into meatloaf! This is one daydream I desperately want to awaken from!

Oceanside - Oceanside needs to go, like now! Nothing about it says bein at the beach by the shore. We already have soooo many better water scents ... Turquoise Waters/Sea Spray, Island Waters/Sunrise Lagoon, Beach Day, Fresh Water&Sea Salt/Sea to Santorini. Just let it go!

Frosted Cupcake - ugghhhhhhhhhhh!!! FC is herpes of candles, it just keeps reappearing whether you like it or not. And if it's not bad enough that it pops up out of the blue like acne, but there are various clones of it - "different" scents that share the same vanilla/buttercream cupcakey note - Pumpkin Cupcake, Cinnamon Frosting, Red Velvet Cupcake, Buttercream Mint. They're like the biracial bastard children with the same dad but different baby mamas.

Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin - Oh how I LOATE this scent! I despise SCP with the passionate white hot ferocity of a thousand suns! I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is the scent that that completely turned me off to all pumpkin scents until very recently. Must we have this candle year and after friggin year?! Like VBN and WCA, can it just stay as body fragrance and not as a candle? Plus you guys already have Pumpkin Carving, the best pumpkin scent ever! Why serve baloney when you have a Tbone steak?

And while we're on the subject of "pumpkin"...can yall PLEASE stop with the "all pumpkin and nothing but the pumpkin" collections PLEASE?! Two years of it back to back is more than enough. Most of your "pumpkin" scents don't smell like pumpkin anyway, so what's the point! And just because yall throw a whole bunch of cinnamon into a scent doesn't make it a "pumpkin" scent! Yeah the whole pumpkin theme treats collection has been done to the death. There are soooo many other fall inspired bakery scents that could/need to brought back...

Caramel Apple...Brandied Pear...Oatmeal Raisin Cookie...S'mores, Chocolate Bacon Cupcake... (the Lavender Marshmallow-esque coochie-twitcher of its day), Sticky Toffee Pudding...Brown Butter Praline... HELLO, APPLE FRIGGIN CRUMBLE - the best fall bakery scent EVER. Stop selling Cinnamon Sugared Doughnut in the spring and put it back in fall where it belongs. I promise you BBW, youll have more people clamoring for a variety of sweet fall scents than a whole bunch of pumpkin spiced bullshit!

Lemon Mint Leaf - I am soooooo tired of seein this damn scent year after friggin year. Whats so special about it. Who wants their domicile to smell like the inside of a dentist's office? LML is a hot toothpastey mess! This and Market Peach are the ONLY scents from the original Fresh Picked collection back '12 and even Market Peach has been given a break...why not this too? There were sooo many truly unique fruit blends in the collection that deserve to see the light of day - Sage Cucumber, Blackberry Grapefruit, Honeydew and Thyme, Summer Melon..we've NEVER had a watermelon scent for summertime. Now if yall wanna keep LML as strictly a core/aromatherapy scent alongside Eucalyptus Mint and Lavender Vanilla, that's fine. Otherwise, let it go!

Summer/American Boardwalk - OMG, if this isn't the most over-rated scent in BBW history ever! I honestly don't understand the obsession/hype with SB, I just don't get it! What is so appealing about caramel, cream, popcorn and apple notes all mixed up together? Yet and still, people go absolutely APESHIT over this scent! Am I missing something? Am I wrong for finding it revolting? It's nauseating right? It's just too much on every level. I could go for straight caramel apple scent (Caramel Apple/Home ~ Sweet Caramel Comfort is my jam) and I could possibly go for a caramel popcorn scent a la Toffee Crunch/Toffee Glazed Popcorn...but the two mixed together with cream...just no!

Vanilla Snowflake - Why does this scent even exist in the first place? What does coconut have to do with winter/Christmastime? I mean yeah I get it - coconut shavings = snowflakes...WHATEVER, it's stupid! What's more, it's an awful scent; it just smells like hot steamy mayonnaise that's been sittin out too long. And this scent is in your face every single winter, why? It ain't all that! Bring back and replace VS with Snow Day or something Snow Day-esque please and thanks!

Caribbean Escape - I am soooo tired Caribbean Escape, we need an escape from that mess. Why does this come back year after year; does anyone truly LOVES CE, is it anyone's all time favorite?  There are sooo many better tropical scents from the past that have not seen the light of day in years. Why not replace it with, oh i dunno, Seaside Escape -  it's a classic! Or last summer's Coastal Sun aka Citrus Flower. There's also Suntan/Poolside (an fan friggin fav), Beachside, White Sand, Calypso Sun, Caribbean Salsa, Tropical Spice. The possibilities are endless!

Actually, can we just do away with the tropical/beach bs, highly overrated! Why not bring back the drink collection from back in the day! Bring back some classics- Paradise Daiquiri, Malibu Smash, Sparkling Mojito, Pineapple Punch, Bahama Fizz, Raspberry Sun Tea. People would lose their proverbial shit for these scents! Old fans would buy these strictly for nostalgia. And there are so many new fans of BBW now that never got experience these old Slatkin era scents. It's time to mix things up!

Mahogany Teakwood - Dear Lord, why is BBW soooooooo obsessed with this damn scent?! For years, it sat in near obscurity so now they've been pushing it in our face at every given turn. MT isn't a bad scent by any means, but it has been over-hyped and rereleased/rerotated  waaaaaaaaay too much. Here's my biggest problem with MT or rather the marketing for MT (and I have this same issue with a couple of scents). I'll be blunt, don't bullshit me! Don't tell me that MT is supposed to make you feel like being in a dusty library on fall brisk evening then turn around and say that it's supposed to make you feel like youre on the wooden deck of a boat on the lake in the heat of summer and then finally as sitting in a log cabin ski resort on winter holiday. Really?! Then on top of that, MT has been repackaged twice with even more BS marketing. First it was a scent that made you think of flotsam drifting onto the shore of a beach and now a floating canoe down the Amazon river. Really BBW?! Don't piss in my cup and tell me it's lemonade, just be honest. If yall love this scent sooo much that you couldn't possibly let it go, keep as a core scent. Otherwise I do not want to see this in any collection, repackaged or otherwise!

Japanese Cherry Blossom - *shakes head Oh, JCB! If there is one scent that I am truly sick to friggin death of seeing, it's this one! Again I ask, what is BBW's obsession with this damned scent?! Attention BBW, it's no longer 1996! Do yall even sell the body care anymore, that's how much I even pay attention to this scent. Is there anyone on the face of the planet that actually enjoys JCB as candle? Anybody? And if that's not bad enough, JCB has a friggin twin - Tokyo Petals! If I were Japanese, just sniffing both of these basic ass scents would drive me to perform seppuku for dishonoring and insulting my ancestors! Of ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
of the scents, candle or otherwise, that desperately needs to not just go but be completely forgotten, it's this one! Seriously BBW, turn off the life support switch and let this one go towards the light! Bring back Dark Kiss or Midnight Pomegranate or Black Amethyst, girly girl scents that people actually LIKE! JCB is not and will never be what's up!
















Comments

  1. Lol! I love your blog and this totally charmed me. : )

    I totally agree, especially as I have a ton of nostalgia for the Slatkin Era scents. The one thing that really irritates me the most (aside from just how underwhelming everything's been lately) is the repackaging and changing marketing copy for the notes. I wouldn't necessarily care about scents coming back, but do it annually and don't change the names! Just be honest about what each scent actually is. And don't have marketing people changing the notes when the formula hasn't changed. Cinnamon and pumpkin are not the same thing. Apple and pear aren't the same thing. All floral are not the same thing. Resins and woods aren't interchangeable. I could go on and on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG, THANK YOU!!!!

    I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry, im so part of the marshmallow fireside bandwagon lol i bougt 6 when they came out to tie me over untill it comes back again. And theres nothing better then curling up in a nice warm blanket infront of the fire in the front room and rosting marshmallows.. Heaven

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey, BB! Its Candlerella, from IG. I just read this blog post, & I wanted you to know I was laughing and crying at the same time when I read your statement about Japanese cherry blossom. Especially knowing now we have to deal with it as a " winter holiday "scent. Oh my precious, precious Lord. What has taken ahold of these marketing people's mind? Insanity? Mental illness? Are they taking Ambien in the daytime? Anyhoos, Ive said it before, and I will say it again. I just love you to death and you're so right about everything you say. Love, Courtney

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey gurl!!!

      I dunno what's goin on BBW's matketing department and the absolutely bonkers bizaree as shit that they do. I still am trying to figure out what makes JCB a winter holiday scent. I just cant!!!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MY LAST POST: End of an Era

CANDLE RETROSPECTIVE: Brozeblogger's Top 20 Candles OF ALL TIME

NEWNESS UPDATE: Spring 2021 Candles