Busy Bee Candles

Since the start of the new year I’ve become a bit obsessed with candles (I blame Twitter as everyone on there is always raving about their favourite candles and I wanted me some of that) so, over the past couple of months I’ve been trying out a few different brands of varying prices to see what I like.

I like Vanilla scents for my bedroom as I like the girly, slightly sickly aroma it adds to my bedroom and I like to burn them whilst I’m doing my night time skincare routine to add to the indulgent factor.

For my living room, I’ve found I favour more floral scents and I have a real soft spot for Jasmine.

Busy Bees were running a promotion through Twitter recently where you got 20% any order placed that evening, so I thought I’d take advantage of the discount and order a few to try.

The ones I picked were:

Honeysuckle and Jasmine
Spring Bouquet
Day Dreamer
Creme Brulee
Vanilla Dream
Cafe Au Lait

All of the above I purchased in the mini-me candle for £4 apart from the Cafe Au Lait which was a wax tart costing £1.60.  Unfortunately the wax tart got smashed in transit, so I wasn’t able to test it out.

Honeysuckle and Jasmine was a little too clinical smelling for me.  The boyfriend really wasn’t a fan and said it made the place smell like a hospital, but whilst my thoughts on it weren’t quite as extreme, I can see what he meant.  It’s quite a sharp scent that I think would be good for removing any stubborn smells as it’s quite strong, but I’m a bit nonplussed about it; I don’t hate it but I doubt I’ll buy it again.

Spring Bouquet was an extremely floral scent that I found a little too intrusive for my tastes.  It’s just about natural enough smelling, and I think if it was a little less OTT it would work really well as a gently floral scent.  However, as it’s so overpowering instead it hints towards air freshener which is a bit pointless in a candle!

Day Dreamer is much more to my liking.  It’s gentle, girly and pretty without being sickly or overly dominant.   It’s an ideal scent for burning on easy evenings without leaning too much towards a soothing scent to send you to sleep.  This one is perfect for my living room as it’s a medium strength that doesn’t intrude at all.

Creme Brulee is a very sickly-sweet scent unlit, but it balances out a little better once it’s started burning.  It’s  definitely more of a caramel scent so if you’re a fan of sticky sweet smells then you’ll absolutely adore this! This is best suited to my bedroom as I think it’s a little too sweet for my living area, but I still like it enough to use regularly.

Vanilla Dream is much more to my liking as it does exactly as it says on the tin.  I have definitely tried better Vanilla scents, but this one, for the price, is more than acceptable and doesn’t smell too sweet or synthetic.

The candles are reasonably priced, burn well and definitely deliver a punch of scent.  I also like the fact that on the site you can search by strength of scent which makes it a lot easier to navigate if you’re after a particular level of strength.  The downside is that the glass the candles are housed in get extremely hot and as  the whole candle becomes completely liquid (I haven’t experienced this with other candles but maybe I’m just to new to the candle world…) I get very nervous that one of my animals is going to knock it over and cause chaos!  That and the fact that the glass and wick go black very easily means that they lose their prettiness quite quickly.

All in all, I think these are fairly good candles that are worth investigating if you’re after a great selection of scents at reasonable prices.

If you’ve come across any fabulous Jasmine or Vanilla themed/scented candles I welcome your suggestions 🙂