Yankee Candle Eggnog Scented Tealights

Never one to let a bargain pass me by and eager to try a Yankee fragrance that was new to me I couldn't resist picking up a box of Eggnog tea lights when I saw them on offer in store at Clinton Cards for a little over £3.00. I've used scented tea lights before in a variety of Yankee fragrances and whilst they wouldn't normally be my first choice of format given the fact that I generally buy the wax tarts and sampler candles the saving against the usual price of these (often over £6.00 depending where you buy them from) meant that it cost very little for me to see what this fragrance was like. As I've mentioned in my past Yankee reviews I do tend to favour the sweet or fruity fragrances that Yankee produce and Eggnog appealed to me from the offset, I liked their creamy mottled colouring and the attractively designed box and even though these were probably originally released as a Christmas or seasonal scent I still thought that they would make for a delicious aroma to have burning in my living room on a night time and as I have been burning these for a few nights now I thought it was time to share my opinions on what I thought of them.

For the money you get a box of 12 scented tea lights, each tea light sits in its own holder and they're about the same size as a ten pence piece and around half an inch in thickness. Yankee claim that they have around 4-5 hours worth of burning time per candle and that the essential oils and fragranced wax that make up their composition give off a consistent aroma throughout the lifespan of each candle. In my experience with Yankee's tea lights I've found that I need to burn at least 2 at a time to get a noticeable amount of aroma emanating from them and that's what I did with these. Placing 2 in a couple of holders and lighting the wicks it took around 10 - 15 minutes for the fragrance to become noticeable and whilst I was expecting a warming, spicy fragrance reminiscent of the Christmas-favourite party tipple I instead got something that was not what I've come to expect from a Yankee fragrance.

Eggnog as a drink is usually spicy, it's a warming creamy, sugar based drink usually spiced up with a drop of rum or brandy and was a perennial favourite in my grandparents household when I was growing up. As a child I wasn't allowed the alcholhic version of the drink but do remember taking a few sips from my grandfathers glass and I would be made my own child-friendly glass each year at Christmas time. For Yankee to replicate this as a fragrance I expected something that was going to be vanilla-heavy with sugary highlights and a cinnamon or nutmeg edge, a fragrance that was going to be warm and inviting whilst making my living room feel cosy. After around 15 minutes there was the unmistakeable scent of vanilla that was noticeable and whilst Yankee use this fragrance a lot in their wax products I have to say that in Eggnog it seems to be the over-dominating note that has a nasty artificial and almost harsh edge to it which immediately reminded me of the cheap air fresheners that you can buy. Normally Yankee gets vanilla spot on, it's usually creamy and sweet and I would say it's probably one of my favourite fragrances that they produce as its used in a lot of their 'baking' aromas, here it's overused and completely overpowers the other notes and rather than being the heart of the fragrance it simply takes over and smothers the sugary undertones and spicy highlights. In the promotional blurb that Yankee produce to accompany their fragrance they claim that these are "tempting Christmas tea lights that capture the aroma of eggnog spiced with cinnamon, fresh clove and vanilla." but I would disagree and would say that they're far too reliant on the vanilla inclusion and rather than being called Eggnog they might as well have called these "Spicy Vanilla".

If this fragrance had been produced by anyone else I may have been more sympathetic and this review may have been less harsh but I've come to expect a high standard from Yankee now and Eggnog has disappointed me. I think it's a bit of a cop-out using vanilla too much in a fragrance and what usually sets Yankee apart from its competition for me comes down to their clever use of different scents that usually give a Yankee fragrance its complexity, I can often detect the different notes that go into a fragrance but for me this one is far too generically vanilla to be remotely interesting. To be fair though I easily got a good 5 hours worth of fragrance from each tea light and they were strong enough to be noticeable but they didn't flood my room with a warming, cosy scent instead the smell lingered malevolently in the background and it was like I had sprayed a cheap vanilla air freshener around my room whenever I walked past my candle holders.

I don't even think that these represented good value for money even at the reduced price I paid, I could have bought a can of cheap vanilla air freshener for less than the reduced cost of a box of Eggnog tea lights and I certainly won't be buying this fragrance again in any other format that Yankee produce. Had it just been tweaked a little then this would easily have been one that I would have loved, Yankee's other vanilla scents are heavenly, Christmas Cookie and Cupcake being two examples of vanilla-based fragrances that I've enjoyed and I don't really understand how Yankee got this one so wrong in all honesty as it should have been a real winter-warmer and a resounding success.

Eggnog is a seasonal fragrance, it's available in all the formats that Yankee produce and the tea lights generally cost around £6.00 for a box of 12. I wouldn't buy these again as already mentioned and I don't think they have anywhere near the same appeal as similar fragrances available from Yankee. Mine were on offer in store at Clinton Cards, probably as a post-Christmas clearance bargain offer but even at £3.00 I don't think they were a good buy and I certainly wouldn't recommend this fragrance to other people after my experience with them. Scented tea lights are usually a good, if not expensive bet when it comes to Yankee as they are long lasting and there's no clean up involved with them once they're used up but I'm only awarding 2 stars as a rating here as I was disappointed with the fragrance they offered me even if they do last for quite a while and do produce enough fragrance to be noticeable.

Thanks for reading my review.