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Competition: Delicious scented candles to carry you off

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Shearer's Candles
My desk is in a corner of the house – I look out at the passing world, but just behind me is the downstairs loo. It’s not a bad place to work, but sometimes, gazing at the rain and listening to the other people who live here, it isn’t the most inspiring.

Ideally, obviously, I’d be sitting up a snow-capped mountain in front of a log fire, or at a street cafe somewhere exotic to meet my muse, but that isn’t happening any day soon. So I improvise.

Scented candles do help create something slightly more sophisticated than usual aroma of my workplace – squidged near the downstairs loo and the laundry room. And nice ones that actually smell of something when you light them because they’ve got real oils in them.

Shearer’s Candles of Glasgow have long been my favourites. Recently I had the chance to chat to artistic director Rosey Barnet.

Rosey has the enviable job of creating the company’s range of delicious scented candles.

She said: “I travel a lot on business and find I get my inspiration all over the world.

“When I was in Egypt and staying in a lovely hotel I found there was a lovely smell of crisp linen mixed a hint of spicy air coming from oil burners. It was wonderful.”

She used that inspiration to instruct perfume houses that she wanted to develop a cotton scent with an edge of spice.

Perfume houses created samples for her which she then had to test in candles as the candle-making process can have a profound effect on oils. Eventually she was satisfied with the Egyptian Cotton scent in the new Spring range.

“The Lavender and Neroli was inspired on a trip to Venice. We went to a restaurant on a beautiful island. One wall was open to a herb garden. You could smell the lavender, the herbs and the orange trees. Then in China I had visited a spa where the pathways were lined with oil burners full of orange oil. Neroli is made from the blossom of the bitter orange.”

Sigh. I could do that job, honest.
I’m currently burning an Egyptian Cotton candle and can confirm that it’s lovely. Almost as nice as my absolute favourite the Lavender and Neroli.

Rosey has kindly offered some Shearer candles from the new range as a prize to one of my readers. To be in with a chance of winning, please leave a comment about what scent you’d like to recreate if you could. Obviously, if you buy my book your chances of winning will improve considerably… as will flattery.

UK entries only.

Competition closes on March 18 and winner will be announced as soon as I can get round to it.

For more information on Shearer’s candles visit their website or their shop in sunny Govan.
PS Rosey tells me she’s working on a range of oil burners that will be divine, not like those nasty ones we all had in the 80s.


PPS Please don’t comment anonymously I need to be able to contact you. Email me if you’re shy – ellenarnison@hotmail.com. 


THIS COMPETITION IS CLOSED AND HAS BEEN WON BY @jennifer_stokes

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Comments

  1. I'm not sure they are ideal for candles but some of my favourite smells are:
    Freshy bathed baby
    Pears Soap (bit of a bath theme here?!)
    Woodsmoke
    Deep rich roses
    Bread and Butter pudding just as it comes out of the oven
    My husband 🙂
    Gillian

  3. Apple pie with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla. Sorry Rosey,I know shearer's already have an orange and cinnamon candle, but for me apple and cinnamon make an ever better match/ Another great match would be lemon and mint or a “pizza” candle with thyme and basil.

  7. Fresh linen and baby powder are my two favourite everyday smells, like a “dark rose” or “amber” scent for night-time xx

  10. You and me both! I write tucked away in a corner of the dining room, staring at a fence (unless I crane my neck to see the garden). Or I write on the sofa, with a straight view onto our downstairs loo door (unless, you guessed, I crane my neck…). I WOULD like to write in the top story of a lighthouse surrounded by nothing but sea and sky. And my favourite scent would therefore be pure fresh sea air; the salty tang that you get when you sit on a headland somewhere. Now that would be something!

  12. If i won I would love to try the White Jasmine Tea as Jasmine is my all time favorite smell xxx – Im a liker on Facebook Lynsey Buchanan

  13. How about this one then? The scent of late spring in an English (sorry – but I don't know about Scotland) garden: mainly lilac, a touch of sweet honeysuckle, newly mown grass and a note of green tea wafting over it all. Add in a slight hint of sweet smelling sun cream and the waft of the newly strengthened sun caressing shoulders. If you could somehow incorporate the sound of a distant blackbird singing while the candle burns, that would be just perfect.

  18. My favourtites are the smell of gorse on hot summers day, the waft of spring Daphne flowers and the first bunch of daffodils brought in from a cold garden as they begin to warm in the house.

  19. What about essence of George Clooney? I would buy that in a flash lol. I love the frsh smells of grapefruit, lemon and orange

  20. I'd like to rescreate the scent of my first proper girlfriends hair!

    @mister_steven

  21. I think honey and ginger would be relatively easy to make and would smell gorgeous!

  27. The smell of my cat when she has been outdoors in the cold – all fresh and outdoorsy!

  28. A strange one I know, but coal tar soap always reminds me of my Dad so I'd buy that if it were in candle form!

    On a more sensible note, I think pine and lavendar together would be nice or perhaps oak and Rosemary

    Regards
    Chris

  38. Many years ago I was in the South of France in the hills just above a town near Cannes and there was a wonderful smell of pine cones unlike anything else I have ever smelled since. It was a pine/waxy scent, very fresh, and combined with the earthy smell of the forest and the fresh smell of the sea . Amazing!

    Penny

  44. The plant Nicotiana (Tobacco Plant) Smells nothing like tobacco, it has the most wonderful perfume on a summers evening. After having to move to a house which I hated from day one I tried to make it home. The garden, untended for 15 years, I transformed and planted the borders with Nicotiana (I had never heard of it but found some cheap at the garden centre) I would sit and smell the perfume and forget how unhappy I was. I spent 5 years in that house but moved away 8 years ago I still plant Nicotiana in my garden every summer.

  46. The smell just after a thunderstorm – wet and green and earthy – either that or freshly baked bread. I'm not sure if a bread-scented candle would be good or bad for my diet though!

  74. I love the smell of suncream, reminds me of lovely family holidays. I would buy this in a flash.

    I also love the smell of petrol, but doubt this would a top seller!!!

    @emmiloam

  75. I would like to create the smell of a damp woods or forest….like damp ferns. A i weird?? lol

    @mariajkknight

  80. I love the smell of the sea, freshly mown grass, freshly baked bread, perculated coffee and petrol!
    @chocolateonemse

  82. So many scents I love…

    Fresh Gingerbread coming out of the oven,
    My baby daughter 🙂
    Suncream – memories of family hols 🙂
    Cinnamon 🙂

    twitter @charlotte_jones

  83. I love the scent of Pandanus flowers..I have not found in UK..but easily available in India..absolutely gorgeous!

    Twitter @dr_reenu

  89. @broughton100

    I love summer evening perfumes such as jasmine and honeysuckle. I also love pine scents and lilac and viburnum.essential oil scents like sandalwood and patchouli take me straight back to my youth and lavender is a classic favourite any time

  90. The old fashioned roses in my grandads garden when I was a small child, modern roses are no where nearly as scented.

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