**REVIEW** J.R. Watkins Room Freshener (Lemon)

My mother loved using J.R. Watkins extracts in her baking. It's excellent stuff and I can still remember the smell from when she used the vanilla in her cakes. Not to mention when we used it for the TPV Perfume mentioned in a 2006 post.

A few years ago, I found some JRW lemon-scented hand lotion by accident and I had a memory storm or mama-memory so had to have it. The lotion smelled divine and worked well on my dry skin. It can pricey in boutique style stores but is crazy affordable at Walmart. Of course.

When I started searching for something to replace my once beloved but no-longer-quality Scentsational Iced Lemon Sugar Cookies wax melts, I kept running across JRW room sprays. Of course, I can't find a match for the Scentsationals but I found the Lemon scent. And I remembered how good the hand lotion smelled.

So, I got (at what I think is a great price)a 6-pack of 4-oz sprays for around $10.50. The bottles all came without damage.

I love that the bottles have a continuous spray feature, but the scent is the most important thing, right? . And...

I have to say I was not overwhelmed.

The fragrance itself is amazing - very fresh and sparkling like effervescent lemon. I sprayed some to kill some cooking odors and it worked. I sprayed the stale air in the bathroom and it worked. I sprayed some to kill that faint bad-breath-y kind of morning bedroom air and it worked.

Notice I keep saying "it worked". So what's the problem?

Well, the scent does not last. At all. I can smell the fragrance just brightening up the air for all of 5 minutes or so.

The only way to get any lasting scent in the home with this is to spray it onto something (I spritz the sheers I have up to the living room windows) but you aren't supposed to do that.

I just can't decide how I feel about this. I mean, I can get 27 ounces of Odoban for under 3 bucks. Odoban kills just about any kind of funky/stale/stinky household odors. I bet that stuff could get rid of locker room stank. However, I love the smell of lemons and vanilla - preferably mixed - and I just wish the JRW scent lasted.

So I am not sure if I will ever buy more of this. I will definetly keep looking for something - a candle or spray - that replaces my Scentsationals Iced Lemon Sugar Cookies...

Peace
--Free



P.S.: The spray comes in other scent choices. Also, I noticed some reviewers mention that these can not be returned so... be careful before ordering that you get the correct scent.

I have to add that I don't know why there are 2 JRW sites. This one looks to be the one with all the original stuff my mother used. This one looks to be the more "modern" carrying just the personal care products. Of course, you can find almost all the products from both sites on Amazon and/or Walmart.

Candle Love and Candle Hate

I'm taking a break from writing to vent about my recent experiences with some candles I ordered.

First, let me say that I love a good scented candle. I've got a thing about fragrance and scented candles are a cheap therapy for me. No matter how sick or depressed I feel, a nice fragrance can help my mood.

Now here's the thing: candles can be so expensive! I'm not 'fancy' like that. I don't need a candle that, ounce per ounce, costs more than my food for the week. That's a real thing. This one looks gorgeous, but is a 2.5 oz, single wick candle for thirty four dollars. 

Eek, right? I knew this was going to be pricey because the description reads like it's for a rare 'House of Somebody' perfume. It has notes of "black-currant leaves and Bulgarian roses". For that kind of money, it ought to have 'notes of the only flower of its kind'. On the Plus side, it is made in France. Oh, well, that makes all the difference except I'd be paying with Made In the USA dollars that I can't spare. If anyone would just like to send me one of these, though, I wouldn't be mad.

Truth be told, I can't even afford a large sized Yankee Candle candle because they cost almost as much as Frenchy up there!

Just $27.99

Yikes! It's a candle, people! I know it says "Vanilla Cupcake" but you can't actually eat it and, even if you could, that's more than I want to pay for one meal...

So... $30 candles are crazy out of my price range. I don't see myself spending that kind of money on a candle even if I won the Powerball. But I will sometimes spoil myself and go as high as $10 for a large candle. I will and I recently did.

This candle had great reviews on Amazon and I loved the idea of trying a Baby Powder scent.

The product description (obviously written by the Seller) made me oh so hopeful.

 And just in case I had second thoughts, the "highly scented" teaser was reiterated.

As a product reviewer, I like to trust other reviewers because they have (usually) no incentive to exaggerate, right? The reviews stacked up as all positive. One review was even titled "Make your friend weep with joy". I wept all right. I cried over my wasted $10 while I ate tuna and noodles for a week.

After I finished crying, I went back and checked reviews again.

 Oh, by the way, I'm the only 1-star reviewer...

(I won't go back into my whole rant about Amazon tightening up the rules about compensated reviews. I mean, at least I never rated a lousy item as something to weep over. Maybe they ought to crack down on non-comp reviewers...)

So anyway. I basically stuck this candle in my bathroom and only burn it with the door shut just before any company arrives. If I let it burn for about half an hour, it covers the smell of any cleaning products I've used.

Next,going back to my lemon-based scents, I tried this candle:

It smelled exactly as described but, again, they were stingy on fragrance oil. It smells strongest and best if I use it on a warmer so that's what I do. My apartment is small so, after about an hour, you start to notice that something smells delicious. This one also at least comes in a great looking jar that I will be able to reuse later for holding something decorative. Still, it's ten bucks for something that I could only give a 2-star review. Too bad that after that other candle I wasn't more trusting of reviews since more buyers agreed with me on this one about the too-light scent.

I have decided to never buy another candle without knowing the brand. I don't need to. I always have my favorite scent in affordable wax melts.

The smell is heavenly! Also, even though the price for a $10 5-pack of these is right in there with those other candles, this is still the better value. For one thing, the scent is stronger and lasts longer so I only need to use 2 of these in a warmer. They will last at full strength for about 3 days before I have to add another single cube. In winter, I will put the used cubes in a glass jar and set them near a heating vent in the bedroom for a light fragrance. Finally, I will toss the old cubes into the bottom of my trash cans under the trash bag. Yeah, I'm frugal and will get all the juice out of these! Another plus is that, if I don't want to spend ten dollars, I can get 1 pack for two dollars.

You get 5 o these packs for $10 delivered to your door!

I can't even begin to describe how delicious this scent is. When one of my nieces visited Alaska and came in my room, she fell in love with the fragrance. I ran right out and bought her a pack to take back home with her. Now that I live here, I order most of my home goods (including groceries) from Walmart.com and the delivery people always tell me how good my apartment smells. One of the delivery people said they were going to look for the same "candle" the next time they were at the store. They were a little surprised when I told them I can get these at the local Walmart for two bucks.

By the way, I have tried a couple other Scentsationals scents. This is my all-time favorite, of course, and I like one called "Egyptian Cotton" which sets a romantic mood. My niece likes the duo packs from Scentsationals. That's where half the cubes in a pack are of one scent and the other is another compatible scent. Me, I will just stick with my lemons!

By the way, while I love Amazon, I would never buy my Scentsationals there. Walmart has the best prices so..

If any of you know of any other wonderful lemon or lemon-vanilla candles or melts, please let me know. They must be affordable and accessible.

Peace
--Free

**REVIEW** ScentSationals (scented wax)

If you ever wanted a simple way to brighten, enhance or lift your mood, you have to try ScentSationals wax melts. This one is my all-time favorite right here:

I've also tried some others and this is another fave:

The Iced Lemon Sugar Cookie (ILSC) scent is so fresh and calming that I have driven across town to other Walmart locations to stock up. I told a friend of mine that the fragrance is better than a Valium. I'm not kidding. I am beginning to think that I might be addicted to the scent.

Not long ago, I tried one of the Burt's Bees wax melts. What a disappointment. First of all, like most things from Burt's Bees, the item was overpriced. The scent was amazing though. Until I tried to use it. I still can't figure out how something that smelled so good in the container could lose every hint of fragrance as soon as it started to warm. I mean, there was NOTHING fragrant coming from that wax once you moved your nose more than half an inch from the warming pot.

If you think I'm being harsh about Burt and his bees, I'm not the only one who was underwhelmed by the wax melts. The next time I was in the store to pick up some more of those fabulous ScentSationals, another customer and I discussed our disgust with Burt's wax melts. She said that she'd actually bought more than one scent, and had even bought one of the candles. In her opinion, the candle was slightly better than the melts - but only very slightly. She had returned all the unused items. Like me, she was sticking with the more affordable lines. (By the way, her favorite are the melts from Better Homes and Gardens. They are about the same price as my faves so I tried out one. Not bad, but I haven't seen a lemon scent to match the ILSC!)

(NOTE: I have no idea what's up with the Better Homes site.)

I used the ILSC in my room and in the trailer because that's where I spend most of my time. I have used the other fragrances in the family bathroom. It's nice that the bathroom always smells pleasant (without anyone having to call attention to themselves by spraying away odor or running the fan), but it's tricky to choose a scent. The guys in the family don't want anything "girly" (seriously, this is what they'd say), but none of us want anything too strong or pronounced. What I ended up doing was choosing from the line of "Refreshing" scents. Tea, Fresh Air, and Rainy Day are the light fragrances we can all enjoy. Those are the kinds of scents that they guys in our family would use in their cars.

One of the things I love most about ScentSationals (other than the wonderfully affordable price) is that the fragrance lasts and lasts and lasts. If I melt three of the cubes on High, I can get a good 2 full days use at full strength. The fragrance does start to wane a bit after that and I've learned to use the Low setting if I want to get another couple of days use from the melts. I used to just dump the depleted (and cooled) wax in the trash basket to freshen it. Lately, I will save some of the used wax in a spare jar. When I'm at my monthly budget limit for household things, I will stick a tea light candle in the scented wax. There's usually a little bit of scent left and tea-lights are nice for setting a relaxing mood. (By the way, I was going to take a photo, but I am also out of tealights. Dangit!**)

Another way to use these wax melts is to store the unopened containers in your dresser drawers. Basically, use them as sachets until you get ready to use them in a warming pot, My mother used to give me little powder sachets to put in my dresser when I was starting to mature. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

This next tip for freshening your car can be tricky so try it at your own risk. I'm just sharing my experiences and yall now that I have had some blips in life...  Put one of the wax melts in some kind of small container (preferably glass or thick plastic) with a lid and leave it half open in your car. Of course, this works well on warm summer days. In cooler weather, you'll have to rely on the car's running heater/warmth. It's still nice. For containers, I have cleaned out some makeup jars and such.

One of the highlights of my life is going to the store with DJ to pick up our ScentSationals. I make it part of my monthly grocery shopping routine. DJ likes to pick out at least three or four scents to smell. His verdict is either"Eww! NO!" or "\Yum. I like this one." He doesn't even care that I mostly only get the ILSC scent. We can spend a good fifteen minutes on that aisle, testing different scents. Last month, the closest Walmart was out of ILSC so DJ chose these from Better Homes to try instead:

Nice but not lemony enough

I told him I didn't like it, but he said we should try it. Okay. Turns out, it wasn't anywhere as lemony as our favorite. When we went back to the store a couple weeks ago and saw that scent, DJ goes, "You were right, BooBoo. That one... No, no, nooo." LOL (You have to see now why it so NOT sad that spending time with this kid is a highlight of my life.)

By the way, don't forget that the Better Homes and Gardens wax melts are just about the same price (at Anchorage Walmarts at least) as the ScentSationals. The local price is about $2.30 for the pack with 6 cubes.


Now, I have to mention that the website doesn't make it easy to find your favorites but once you do, there is a nice comparism feature. When I first checked the site for my ILSC scent, I had to use the Search function. Before that I was checking under the wrong categories: Tropical, Garden, etc. The Iced Lemon Sugar Cookies is actually under "Delectables". Okay.

I got extremely frustrated when I added a ton of scents to the "compare" list only to have them disappear. Guess what? I forgot to set up an account. Actually, I don't want an account. I don't want to order online and wait for deliveries when I can just pick items up at the store. Grrrr... Okay, so I established an account only so I could use the Compare feature.

Turns out the Compare feature is pretty useless. I loved the description of the Iced Lemon Sugar Cookies:

"Deliciously baked lemon, lime blend of pure sweet coconut milk and sugar with light notes of vanilla extract."

Yum, right? So I wanted to compare other scents to see what I might like in the same range. This is what I get from the description of Red Velvet Cake:

"Red Velvet Cake
2 oz"

Yeah. That tells me all of nothing.

The site might be useless for anything other than getting a list of scents but, hey, I'd rather follow my nose anyway. I can always ask local stores to order the scents I like

Other than the categories of fragrances (Tropical, Romantic, etc), there's also something called "Fusion" for mixing and matching. By the way, I usually get the 6-cube item (and you can see from the photo that they are a good size for smaller warming pots), but both the Scentsationals and the Better Homes melts come in larger amounts ("value packs") and in con sets:

Finally, I noticed that the scents are cheaper at the local Walmart than they are from the website. Just saying.

Peace
--Free


** If you want to know why I'm out of tealights & can't get more.... Wait for my next review! LOL