Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Uncommon Scents


Uncommon Scents

(This is meant to be read in a deep, corny advertising voice. Think Phil Hartman as Troy McClure on The Simpsons.)

Hello, friends!

Do you like smelling things? Do you also have an affinity for fire? If you enjoy both, you have probably tried candles before.

We here at the Yankee Candle Company figured out a way to get everyday scents into wax form and put them into over-priced glass jars!

Hopefully, you are already familiar with our popular scents like Macintosh, Edelweiss, and Pink Sands.

But did you know we also carry entirely nonsensical fragrances, like Catching Rays and Afternoon Escape?

Along those lines, have you ever wondered what a magical frosted forest would smell like? Thanks to us, you can find out!

Happening upon magical forests can be tricky and often completely impossible because they do not exist. And a frosted one?!? Lots of luck there.

No need to search vast wastelands simply for a scent-- just buy our Magical Frosted Forest candle! It smells just like a forest that has been frosted with a little drop of magic because such an occurrence is realistically possible.

Want more? We have a scented candle for everybody:

For the rock 'n'/or rollers, Poolside Oasis smells just like chlorine mixed with a band that desperately tried to be The Beatles!

Wine snobs will love Vineyard’s distinct aroma of rotten grapes!

And if you cannot get enough laundry, we have several scents to satisfy your desire to smell clean clothes even after putting them away!

These candles are part of our… wait for it… Laundry Line!

Sheer Linen, Soft Blanket, and Fluffy Towels should quench your thirst to do chores until the next load of filthy garments.

If you prefer your laundry with a side of intangibility, Fresh Comfort and Soft And Cozy will be sure to please.

A while back, our founder, Michael Kittredge, discovered a teenage girl weeping in a field.

(Why he was in a field searching for a weeping teenage girl is irrelevant.)

This young lass was crying and holding the stem of a petal-less flower because she had just been playing He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not and sadly ended on a Not petal.

Instead of consoling the sobbing girl, Michael bravely bottled her tears with a healthy dose of her insecurity to create what would become our Loves Me, Loves Me Not candle.

It smells exactly like heartbreak!

Do you enjoy the sky? Of course you do!

For those of you who look up sometimes, we offer Blue Summer Sky, Midnight Sky, and Turquoise Sky, because the sky is an actual entity that produces not just one but several natural scents.

Here are some more candle names followed by what they actually and truly and authentically smell like:

Beautiful Day- fresh air and trees with a hint of Irish smugness

Wedding Day- drunk uncles and horrible music

Storm Watch- watching a storm

Camouflage- sweat and shrapnel

Early Sunrise- the exact opposite of the familiar aroma of a late sunrise

Because we like you, we are going to let you in on a special candle secret.

If you light Over The River and Under The Palms at the same time, you get the scent of Limbo followed by a whiff of utter nothingness!!!

At this point, you might be saying, 'But what about America? Does the Yankee Candle Company care about the troops?'

Well, friends, apparently you missed our Camouflage candles.

One entire thousandth of every dollar from each small version of Camouflage sold goes directly to Soldiers Who Sneeze, a for-profit organization that pretends to help veterans suffering from the rare post-traumatic disorder of constantly seeking black pepper.

But one candle cannot be enough scentiment for this great nation.

From our Rah Rah America Collection, we bring you Stars And Stripes, Let Freedom Ring, and of course, God Bless America. These candles bring to life actual smells from The Great Depression, The Civil War, and other wonderful American standards.

If there is one thing Americans love as much as patriotism, it’s Christmas.

For this very reason, we created an absurd line of Christmas candles, but since Yuletide can be a time of over-indulgence, we have limited our scents to these select few:

All Is Bright, Build A Snowman, Candy Cane Lane, Celebrate Christmas, Christmas Candy, Christmas Cookie, Christmas Eve, Christmas Morning Punch, Christmas Tree, Christmas Wishes, Christmas Wreath, Frosty Gingerbread, Holiday Garland, Holiday Home Sweet Home, Holiday Homecoming, Home For The Holidays, Jack Frost, Let It Snow, Merry Marshmallow, Mistletoe, Midnight Mistletoe, North Pole, Santa’s Cookies, Season Of Peace, Singing Carols, Sleigh Bells Ring, Welcome Christmas, White Christmas, and Yuletide Spice.

To avoid confusion, Holiday Homecoming smells like traffic and Grandma while Home For The Holidays wafts the scent of gridlock and Grandpa.

These subtle differences are what make our holiday candles truly special.

As a fair and inclusive company, please don’t think we would pass on making money from our Jewish friends. For Hanukkah, we made one and only one candle called Festival Of Lights, which smells like spinning wooden toys while not eating ham.

Did you know 77% of Americans believe in angels?

Our Angel's Wings candle has the heavenly aroma of actual Heaven while Sparkling Angel reminds you of just how foolish you really are.

In the grand tradition of grand traditions, we have saved the best for last:

A few years ago, Yankee Candle was challenged to create a candle that smelled of hasenpfeffer.

Without boasting at all, we completely and absolutely nailed it. Slaughtered rabbit, onions, potatoes, green beans- our candle had them all.

The scent was so realistic that some of us even ate the wax with limited happiness and maximum bowel irritation!

Naturally, we marketed our Hasenpfeffer candle’s label with an actual picture of a screaming young rabbit being boiled alive. While the scent was spot-on, the candles did not sell so well because the sight of a screaming young rabbit being boiled alive bothered a few people for some unknown reason.

We then formed an unnecessarily-expensive think tank to determine how to market our newest product and came up with three conclusions:

1) The word 'bunny' is much friendlier than 'rabbit' or that icky German word 'hasen'

2) There are too many Fs in the word ‘pfeffer’

3) Everyone likes cake

After thousands of hours and millions of dollars, the Yankee Candle Company was proud to present Bunny Cake to the masses.

The label now features a delicious-looking cake shaped in the form of an adorable cartoonish bunny.

Fret not though, friends, for each time you light the candle, you will undoubtedly remind yourself of a screaming young rabbit being boiled alive.

In the near-future, please keep a nose out for our new candle-tastic fragrances like Terrifying Basement, Awkward Laughter, Bubonic Plague, and Elevator Fart.

Thank you for your time and keep on smelling!

***DISCLAIMER***

Because lawsuits happen, the author would like to say he is in no way affiliated with the Yankee Candle Company.

Also, the stories about the girl in the field and the rabbit were completely (but cleverly) made up, as were *some* of the scents.

So there. Leave me alone.