Yankee Candle Serves Up a Slice of Americana

When I close my eyes and smell Yankee Candle's new Apple Pie fragrance, I am immediately brought to another place and time. It's Nana's kitchen and I'm about 8 years old. My Nana, who just turned a youthful 97-years-old made the very best apple pie that I have ever tasted. The crust was flaky and my favorite part was when the juices from the apples mixed with sugar and spices and oozed out of the corners and crevices. How our master candle makers and fragrancers captured Nana's pie, I will never know. The only thing that's sure is that lighting this candle will always make me feel warm and happy - just like being in Nana's kitchen!

Yankee Candle® Fund-Raising Helps Build Playgrounds

A classmate of my 8-year-old niece is in a wheelchair so when she was enrolling in the elementary school the PTO needed to find a way to make the playground handicapped accessible. They turned to Yankee Candle® Fund-Raising. In selling Yankee® candles, the group was able to achieve their goal and raise what they needed to modify the equipment, making it a safe play space for all children. This fund-raiser has been so successful for them, in fact, that they've now completed their 5th year selling Yankee® candles!

"The Yankee Candle® Fund-Raiser was the most effortless and profitable fund-raiser we have had and we look forward to our next Yankee Candle® sale scheduled for this fall."
– South Boston, MA

Yankee Candle's Sparkling Lemon Adds The Spark To My Day!

Ever wonder why so many cleaning products are made with a "lemon-fresh" scent? According to some, it may very well be because that distinctive citrus scent can make even the most mundane task seem fun and easy! The fragrance of lemons is one of four aromas that are are identifiable with positive energy. Smelling lemon is said to boost your mood and increase your stamina. No wonder why I'm always energized when I'm burning a Sparkling Lemon candle! What other fragrances are good mood enhancers? Well, if you need a "perk" me up, try smelling a Cafe Au Lait candle as even just the scent of coffee can awaken you almost as much as grabbing a cappuccino from your favorite cafe. And, if you're preparing for an important job interview, be sure to chew a peppermint candy - a scent linked to better accuracy in tasks - and light a Cinnamon Stick candle to help you concentrate on landing the position.

Make a Change With a Jar of Change

An e-mail that we received this week was really thought-provoking. The message was sent from Diane, a person who has been using Yankee® candles for years but has had difficulty finding ways to re-use her empty jars. That is, until she read a book called Christmas Jars by Jason F. Wright. Mr. Wright’s book relates a tradition of collecting a year’s worth of spare change in an empty jar and then anonymously gifting it to someone in need. Diane was inspired by this book and found that large Yankee Candle jars are the perfect vessel to collect the spare change. She began giving away jars of change last year and plans to continue to do so in the years ahead. Diane hopes that these anonymous jars of change will change a person’s life. In reading Diane’s message, I too was inspired. I plan to start my own jar of change and with it I hope to teach my daughter the great gift found in giving to others.

Candles for Dads

Working with candles everyday, I am often reminded that the first person to ever share with me his love for scented candles was my father. Growing up it was often a joke that when we went to Virginia's Pottery Factory as a family, my mother would browse for pots while my father loaded the trunk with candles of varying shapes and forms to bring back home. (This was, of course, in the 70's before Yankee Candle® came into my life!) In fact, my sisters and I knew that Dad was waxing nostalgic when he would light all the candles on the porch and turn on the radio to the oldies station. It's no surprise then that while others may think of candles for the women in their lives, I turn to them just as often for my Dad. So, what is an appropriate candle for a man? Of course it depends on the person and his taste in scents. Several weeks ago my father celebrated his birthday and I gave him a Conceal® mosquito blocking candle to use when he's outside gardening. As a retired Naval officer, he loved the Stars & Stripes™ candle I gave him for Memorial Day. And with Father's Day quickly approaching I'm looking to something like Sea Harbor™ or Sun & Sand® so that we can reminisce about our fun days at the beach!

How to Create Your Own Custom Yankee Candle® Scent

A favorite activity among candle fans is creating their own custom blend with Tarts® wax potpourri. Dubbed Fragrance Mixology™ by the Yankee Candle Company, this kind of DIY home fragrance is two parts art and one part science. It's sort of Iron Chef meets Bill Nye the Science Guy! For the artistic part, mixologists need to know which fragrances would make a great blend. Would you try mixing Coconut Bay™ and Midsummer's Night®? What about Honeydew Melon and Storm Watch®? Just as different foods will bring out different tastes when combined, different scents will also bring out the best (or the worst) in each other. Once you decide on the combo, you need to determine how much of each fragrance to combine. That's the science part. Do you make each part equal, or would you rather have more of one scent shine through? Through trial and error, mixologists will come up with just the right recipe and then don their artistic cap again to craft the perfect - and perfectly clever - name for their creation.

Fragrance mixologist extraordinaire Leigh Silas Hanrihan catalogued all of the recipes tried in the test kitchens of Yankee Candle® fans around the world and posted them on this website:

http://candlemixarchive.weebly.com/ .

The next time you want to provide just the right fragrance for your home, have fun developing your own custom blend!

Scenting The Way To College Life

'Tis the season for graduations! We went to one graduation party last weekend and have two others to attend this weekend! It seems like just yesterday that they graduated from kindergarten and now they're packing their bags heading to the halls of higher learning. One of my favorite ways to prepare someone for life in a dorm is to give them a box of lifesavers. Not the fruity candy kind, but the kind that you can really turn to when the road gets kind of rough. I buy a plastic tote and fill it with things like microwave popcorn for late-night studies, breakfast bars for early morning classes, a dictionary because spellcheck doesn't catch everything, ear plugs for snoring roommates, a roll of quarters for the laundry, and a gift card to a local grocery store. And, of course, I include the e-scentials for dorm life: flameless fragrance! Things like Yankee Candle® Electric fragrancers and reed diffusers in a favorite scent really turn a stale dorm room into a little home away from home. Add in Good Air™ room sprays to eliminate the stench of overcooked microwave popcorn (among other unpleasant odors) and your co-ed will be the envy of the floor! I finish the box with personal care products for young people who like to light the candle at both ends: vitamins and anti-bacterial hand sanitizer. While life will always take an unexpected turn, at least you know your student can open a little box of love and care and think of you!