CANDLE SPOTLIGHT: Alpine Cheer

Products: candle and wf bulbs
Area used in:  living room
Time Period: mid-February - mid-March

Description: Add cheer to your winter with the crisp fragrance of mountain balsam, cedarwood bark and snow white cranberry

So late winter is a weird time for me scent wise; I'm tired of all heavy holiday-ish pine and spice and bakeriness but I'm not ready for springtime florals. Around this time I tend to lean towards dark fruity but still wintery scents - cranberry, blackcurrant, pomegranate, pear. My late winter jam is Merry Mistletoe but BBW foolishly didn't release it this winter. I had my eye on this scent as it seemed like a scent I would like so I decided to give it a try.

Burn-wise, this candle is a beast! That said it burns a little too quickly for me, quicker than usual. I have to be really sparing with how long I let it burn. The flames were always ridonkulously high and wax pool melted very quickly. It did stub out towards the bottom but once I did the infamous cottonball trick, I went back to normal. Throw-wise, I'd say it's medium-strong; I don't think I like this scent enough for it to be knock you out strong. It does  manage to fill my living room and scent lingers for hours after I blow the candle out. The wf bulbs were super strong at first but then totally mellowed into borderline nonexistance.

And now the scent.. y'know, every once in awhile BBW releases a scent that completely throws me for a loop. I remember when I first sniffed it in the store and it smelled so familiar. Even now I can't think of what it could be a repackage of. I've thought of every piney/balsamy candle I could think of - Fresh Balsam, Evergreen, Frosted Tree, Frosted Pine, Alpine Frost, Holly Wreath, Winter Garland, Holiday Pomander, Sleigh Ride, Snowed In, Apple Garland, Pinecone. The closest thing I could think of was Merry Mistletoe; it's definitely not a repackage but it's close, similar vibe scent wise - in fact I daresay Merry Mistletoe is like Alpine Cheer's big brother.

It's a hard and peculiar scent to describe. You get balsam but it's a lot sweeter than it usually is, not nearly as intense as Fresh Balsam. I also get a heavy blast of cedarwood, I think I get more cedarwood than balsam. The cedarwood note has a resinous feel that reminds me a lot of Evergreen. And now the fruit notes - I don't get cranberry at all! What I do smell aren't mentioned in the notes at all - apple and orange. I get the rind of a Macintosh apple and zest/oil from a mandarin or clementine. I also smell something else and it's very bizarre - pineapple. Tinadivalicious said it in his review and I was like "dafuq?!" But I totally get it and the note intensifies the more the candle burns. I dunno if there's actually pineapple in this; maybe the combo of apple and along with the sappy resinous cedarwood comes across as pineappley. Although back in the day Slatkin did have a scent called "Pineapple Wreath" which I know little to nothing about..perhaps this is a repackage of that and BBW hoped that know would be familiar enough with it. It would worked for Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake aka Brown Butter Praline.

This scent is aiight; it's not terrible by any means but it's not the best and I could think of several scents that they could've brought back instead...including Merry Mistletoe. If you're not into heavy pine scents and prefer scents that are a little more sweet and fruity, then you'll love AC. It's an inoffensive new scent worth trying but real talk I won't miss it once the candle and bulbs are done nor will I miss it if it never came back.