WALK N SNIFF: Land of Sweets Collection
This past weekend, my bf and I decided to take a trip to a mall a bit further out from us that we hadn't been to awhile. While we were there, we went into a WB/BBW store to take advantage of their recent handsoap sale. As I was looking around and making my mental notes for Candle Day, out of the corner of my eye I noticed the Land of Sweets collection.
I figured since I was there, I might as well as give em a sniff for the sake of writing a review.
*sigh
So I am not one to oh and ah over packaging; for me, the look of the labels is irrelevant and the scent itself is far more important. But even I have to admit the look of this collection is ridonkulously cute. However, unlike most in the candle community, the labels are not cute enough for me to consider buying any of them or distract me from the fact the scents themselves are basic AF! Once a-goddamn-gain, here's BBW choosing style over substance! It is beyond frustrating to me as a longtime fan to see BBW continue to pander to people who care more about the look of candles and not enough or hardly at all about how they smell. But as long as "Buying this for the packaging" Barbaras continue to shell out money, BBW will continue to cater to them, leaving ingenuity and creativity and brainpower to candle labels as opposed to the candles themselves. Honestly, why bother wasting time, money, effort and manpower on wax, oils and handpicked wicks - just sell the tumblers!
What annoys me about this collection in particular is that this collection was/is a good idea! Sweet Shop meets Destinations with holiday Christmas villages on the labels! Adorbs! This could've been the perfect opportunity to create some intriguing new blends and introduce newbies to holiday scents of yore. Nope, not so much. Just re-released crap that we see all the damn time and the new scents are just all kinds of underwhelming...which brings me to the review...
I won't waste either your and my time talking about Hot Cocoa & Cream (Ski Lodge) or Cafe au LAME (Paris) or Sugared Snickerdoodle (Santa's Workshop). Crushed Candy Cane (Elf Village) is good one and one I may consider buying on Candle Day.
Blueberry Sugar...can someone, anyone sincerely, honestly, genuinely, earnestly tell me what is the appeal of this candle? Why is it so popular? What exactly is "blueberry sugar" and if it does exist, what does it have to do with Christmas?
Which leaves us to the new scents...
New York ~ Cherry Cheesecake (9283AGA9) - When I first heard about this scent, I was extremely excited. I LOVE cheesecake; my love of cheesecake rivals the Golden Girls. Strawberry and cherry cheesecakes are particular favs of mine. Also, my home is NYC adjacent. Needless to say this candle spoke to me. However, I was a bit leery. BBW rarely if ever creates new un-repackaged bakery scents that are actually good and authentic. Moreover, their last foray into the world of cheesecake wasn't completely successful. The now forgotten Pumpkin Spiced Cheesecake candle smelled NOTHING like cheesecake and it made sense that it didn't as it was a repackage of scent that nothing to do cheesecake - Brown Butter Praline which was a repackage of French Caramel Cake both circa 2011. I had a feeling Cherry Cheesecake was gonna be repackage of something completely unrelated and dupe people thru the power of persuasion and suggestion. Turns out I was, unfortunately, right! Folks on social media were saying it was a repackage of failed test scent of Frosted Cake Pop. Although the candle didn't go wide, the wf refill did and I do remember smelling a tester candle of it. Based on my scent memory, I do believe folks are right!
So what does it smell like? Like I said, it smells nothing like cheesecake. There's not even a creamy/milky/dairy aspect to even suggest or give the illusion of cheesecake/cream cheese. And there's no added graham cracker despite what it says in the notes. What you get is a straightup vanilla white cake, like actual cake. And the cherry is the same artificial, sickeningly sweet cough drops/syrup note in all of BBW's cherry based scents. It's really disappointing and such a wasted opportunity. While cheesecake isn't particularly a holiday dessert staple in NY, it still would've been cute if executed well. Alas BBW choose to be lazy and repackage something unrelated hoping that customers would be too stupid to notice.
London ~ Tea & Biscuits (92857A1E)
ADDENDUM - If you didn't know already, "biscuits" are what the British call cookies, mainly a specific semi sweet kind made from wheat flour. Gingersnaps, sugarcookies and shortbread are also referred to biscuits as well.
Ok so first of all, Tea & Biscuits, really BBW?! Ok we get it... "oi, 'ullo guv'nah. Aoi cud go for ah noice cuppa tea to dunk me biscuits into ahlroight" Like, really?! I know the Brits love them some tea-soaked cookies (my in laws are from and live in the UK, so I can attest to this) but come on! We already have a stereotypical cliched London inspired tea candle in London Calling, do we need another?! And what does tea and biscuits have to do with Christmastime? Not figgy/Christmas pudding or mincemeat pies or trifles or sticky toffee pudding...tea and biscuits?! BBW has never been the most culturally savvy or sensitive but in 2019/damn near 2020, I believe it's long overdue to make an effort.
I wouldn't even be mad if this candle actually did smell like actual legit tea and biscuits! Imagine being greeted by the inviting fragrance of warm slightly salty but sweet buttery shortbread with the delicate aroma of a Darjeeling black tea or an Earl Grey dancing behind it with a hint of frothy decadent cream! Well you're certainly not getting any of that! Thankfully we didn't get a remix of London Calling but what we're actually getting isn't too far off.
Honestly, all I get is lemon leaning more towards lemonade. There's an distinctly "iced" feel to it like a cold beverage which is odd as it's supposed to emulate a hot drink and no sane person would dip into a cold beverage besides milk. I don't really get tea...although there is an extremely faint hint of a herbal/floral blend that could possibly be "tea". There's not much "biscuit" either; again there's a faint hint of something vaguely bakery but I can't say that it smells like anything remotely cookie-ish.
I figured since I was there, I might as well as give em a sniff for the sake of writing a review.
*sigh
So I am not one to oh and ah over packaging; for me, the look of the labels is irrelevant and the scent itself is far more important. But even I have to admit the look of this collection is ridonkulously cute. However, unlike most in the candle community, the labels are not cute enough for me to consider buying any of them or distract me from the fact the scents themselves are basic AF! Once a-goddamn-gain, here's BBW choosing style over substance! It is beyond frustrating to me as a longtime fan to see BBW continue to pander to people who care more about the look of candles and not enough or hardly at all about how they smell. But as long as "Buying this for the packaging" Barbaras continue to shell out money, BBW will continue to cater to them, leaving ingenuity and creativity and brainpower to candle labels as opposed to the candles themselves. Honestly, why bother wasting time, money, effort and manpower on wax, oils and handpicked wicks - just sell the tumblers!
What annoys me about this collection in particular is that this collection was/is a good idea! Sweet Shop meets Destinations with holiday Christmas villages on the labels! Adorbs! This could've been the perfect opportunity to create some intriguing new blends and introduce newbies to holiday scents of yore. Nope, not so much. Just re-released crap that we see all the damn time and the new scents are just all kinds of underwhelming...which brings me to the review...
I won't waste either your and my time talking about Hot Cocoa & Cream (Ski Lodge) or Cafe au LAME (Paris) or Sugared Snickerdoodle (Santa's Workshop). Crushed Candy Cane (Elf Village) is good one and one I may consider buying on Candle Day.
Blueberry Sugar...can someone, anyone sincerely, honestly, genuinely, earnestly tell me what is the appeal of this candle? Why is it so popular? What exactly is "blueberry sugar" and if it does exist, what does it have to do with Christmas?
Which leaves us to the new scents...
New York ~ Cherry Cheesecake (9283AGA9) - When I first heard about this scent, I was extremely excited. I LOVE cheesecake; my love of cheesecake rivals the Golden Girls. Strawberry and cherry cheesecakes are particular favs of mine. Also, my home is NYC adjacent. Needless to say this candle spoke to me. However, I was a bit leery. BBW rarely if ever creates new un-repackaged bakery scents that are actually good and authentic. Moreover, their last foray into the world of cheesecake wasn't completely successful. The now forgotten Pumpkin Spiced Cheesecake candle smelled NOTHING like cheesecake and it made sense that it didn't as it was a repackage of scent that nothing to do cheesecake - Brown Butter Praline which was a repackage of French Caramel Cake both circa 2011. I had a feeling Cherry Cheesecake was gonna be repackage of something completely unrelated and dupe people thru the power of persuasion and suggestion. Turns out I was, unfortunately, right! Folks on social media were saying it was a repackage of failed test scent of Frosted Cake Pop. Although the candle didn't go wide, the wf refill did and I do remember smelling a tester candle of it. Based on my scent memory, I do believe folks are right!
So what does it smell like? Like I said, it smells nothing like cheesecake. There's not even a creamy/milky/dairy aspect to even suggest or give the illusion of cheesecake/cream cheese. And there's no added graham cracker despite what it says in the notes. What you get is a straightup vanilla white cake, like actual cake. And the cherry is the same artificial, sickeningly sweet cough drops/syrup note in all of BBW's cherry based scents. It's really disappointing and such a wasted opportunity. While cheesecake isn't particularly a holiday dessert staple in NY, it still would've been cute if executed well. Alas BBW choose to be lazy and repackage something unrelated hoping that customers would be too stupid to notice.
London ~ Tea & Biscuits (92857A1E)
ADDENDUM - If you didn't know already, "biscuits" are what the British call cookies, mainly a specific semi sweet kind made from wheat flour. Gingersnaps, sugarcookies and shortbread are also referred to biscuits as well.
Ok so first of all, Tea & Biscuits, really BBW?! Ok we get it... "oi, 'ullo guv'nah. Aoi cud go for ah noice cuppa tea to dunk me biscuits into ahlroight" Like, really?! I know the Brits love them some tea-soaked cookies (my in laws are from and live in the UK, so I can attest to this) but come on! We already have a stereotypical cliched London inspired tea candle in London Calling, do we need another?! And what does tea and biscuits have to do with Christmastime? Not figgy/Christmas pudding or mincemeat pies or trifles or sticky toffee pudding...tea and biscuits?! BBW has never been the most culturally savvy or sensitive but in 2019/damn near 2020, I believe it's long overdue to make an effort.
I wouldn't even be mad if this candle actually did smell like actual legit tea and biscuits! Imagine being greeted by the inviting fragrance of warm slightly salty but sweet buttery shortbread with the delicate aroma of a Darjeeling black tea or an Earl Grey dancing behind it with a hint of frothy decadent cream! Well you're certainly not getting any of that! Thankfully we didn't get a remix of London Calling but what we're actually getting isn't too far off.
Honestly, all I get is lemon leaning more towards lemonade. There's an distinctly "iced" feel to it like a cold beverage which is odd as it's supposed to emulate a hot drink and no sane person would dip into a cold beverage besides milk. I don't really get tea...although there is an extremely faint hint of a herbal/floral blend that could possibly be "tea". There's not much "biscuit" either; again there's a faint hint of something vaguely bakery but I can't say that it smells like anything remotely cookie-ish.
ADDENDUM - Backintheday there was a candle called Vanilla Shortbread that had vanilla shortbread base with unmentioned and intense lemon note. T&B may be a repackage of that. If any has a Vanilla Shortbread candle laying about, it would be great if you could dare to compare the 2 candles!
Much like Cherry Cheesecake, Tea & Biscuits is such a disappointment and a wasted opportunity. That seems to be the ongoing theme of this entire collection. That said, with it's super cute packaging, does it really matter? Unfortunately, probably not.
*throws up in the air in defeat and slow walks away
Much like Cherry Cheesecake, Tea & Biscuits is such a disappointment and a wasted opportunity. That seems to be the ongoing theme of this entire collection. That said, with it's super cute packaging, does it really matter? Unfortunately, probably not.
*throws up in the air in defeat and slow walks away
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