Yankee Candle Island Guava Wax Potpourri Tart

Introduction

After the disappointment of the Beautiful Day sampler, the subject of my last Yankee review, I turned my attention back to familiar grounds and went on the look-out for a fruit-based wax tart and ended up buying '''Island Guava'' a Yankee Summer fragrance release, one that I hadn't seen or tried before. I tend to favour the fruity or sweet smelling candles Yankee have to offer rather than anything too floral and many readers of my reviews will know that I have made my way through dozens of the wax tarts that are available and have, for the most part, always been impressed with what I have bought.

I expected Island Guava to be a strong smelling, fragrance-packed wax tart having found this to be the case with other fruity products in Yankee's range but as I was soon to discover even in wax tart format this ended up falling short of my expectations and I found it to be very underwhelming indeed.

Wax Tarts

All wax tarts from Yankee share the same things in common, they're all flat pieces of wax and unlike candles they don't have a wick running through them. They are designed to be be melted in the well of a tart or pot pourri burner by a tea light which sits underneath and the fragrances and essential oils that are infused into them are released once the wax takes on a molten form. They tend to cost around a pound each and normally give off upto 8 hours of fragrance and are the cheapest way of getting an introduction to the scents available from Yankee. I usually rate them very highly as I think they represent fantastic value for money and whilst there have been a few whos scents have not appealed to me personally for the money they cost they're never an expensive mistake. So, wrapper taken off and tart placed into my tart burner I lit a tealight, sat back and waited to be transported to exotic climes courtesy of Island Guava...

Island Guava

As shown in my picture, Island Guava is cream in colour with an eye-catching illustration on its wrapper. Sometimes you can get an idea of the fragrance on offer even before the wax has melted and holding this one to my nose I got a subtle whiff of something generically fruity. Once my tea-light had been lit and allowing a few minutes for the wax to melt I soon noticed the fragrance it was delivering, sadly though unlike other wax tarts that provide wave after wave of delicious aromas Island Guava failed to get a positive reaction out of me.

It's supposed to be a combination of exotic fruits, oranges and apples but in reality this is one of the flattest, most uninteresting fragrances I've ever encountered from Yankee Candles and rather than flood my room with exotic aromas it sat gently in the background providing a lackluster amount of scent and was nowhere near as potent as other wax tarts I have used before. A fragrance should promote a reaction in someone, even if it's a negative one and there have been many fragranced wax tarts that I haven't liked either because they're too strong or too flowery for my own tastes.

Island Guava smells of nothing in particular, none of the fruit notes are evident - I couldn't detect Apple or Orange let alone Guava instead it was just a lightly subtle fruit scent which would have difficulties in fragrancing even the smallest room in anyone's home. Had I bought this in Sampler format I may have been more forgiving, I've come to realise that samplers lack the intensity of wax tarts and pretty much set my expectations to low when I burn them now, wax tarts are different though, they are much stronger normally and usually flood the area around my tart burner with fragrance which in turn works it way around my living space, this one didn't.

For a Summer release I am disappointed in Yankee with this one and having had Island Guava melting since last night I am yet to be captivated by it. Today the scent is weaker than it was yesterday and I'm not going to get anywhere near 8 hours worth of fragrance from it. For the price I paid it has little worth and I certainly wouldn't buy it again in any other of the formats and can't recommend this one to other people at all.

Conclusion and Rating

I don't think I've ever awarded 2 stars for a Yankee Candle wax tart before, even if a scent hasn't appealed to me in the past I normally put this down to individual tastes rather than any fault with the actual product itself, however for the purpose of rating Island Guava for this review 2 stars is all it's getting. I can't see its appeal to anyone to be honest, even those who like subtle fragrances would find this to be too weak to be noticeable and this is possibly the first time ever that I wouldn't recommend one of Yankee's wax tarts.

Island Guava is a current release and is available both online and on the high street and in wax tart format costs approximately £1.00. Don't bother would be my advice, there are far better fruit-based fragrances available from Yankee than this one and it is a real disappointment when compared to the usual high standards that Yankee are renowned for.

Overall: Not recommended.

Thanks for reading my review, please note that this may also appear on dooyoo under my username.