I’m combining this week’s two Fall Fun Series prompts – Monday’s to highlight a new or little known vendor and today’s to talk about good, old fashioned candles – into one with this post featuring my favourite wicked wonder, Volupsa’s French Bourbon Vanille. Made with crushed, distilled vanilla beans, this gorgeous fragrance satisfies the side of me that prefers her scents to be a little less cotton candy cupcake and a lot more gourmand. If you’ve ever used vanilla bean paste in baking, you’re familiar with the heady, floral, slightly boozy scent of pure vanilla – it’s one of life’s most beautiful fragrances, and this candle captures it perfectly. French Bourbon Vanille is also one of those universal fragrances that bridges seasons – I think this scent would be just as pretty in the spring, with its light floral undertones, as it would be in the fall and winter, with its rich, more complex vanilla notes.
Voluspa, being on the higher end of both the price and availability spectrums, is not a name I ever see being bandied about the wax world. Available via a number of independent perfumeries, but for a Canadian like me, primarily through the Chapters/Indigo chain of bookstores, Voluspa’s products – lidded glass candles, tiny, travel-size tins, reed diffusers and more – are not easy to come by, nor are they inexpensive. This two-wick glass jar candle, an annual Christmas gift from my parents, retails for $38 Canadian.
Fortunately, French Bourbon Vanille has the pedigree befitting a $38 candle – 60 hours of burn time, silky smooth, clean-burning coconut wax, cotton wicks and a gorgeous glass container with an embossed lid that, if you’re very careful in cleaning, you can reuse as a beautiful box for tiny treasures. This candle feels like a Very Special Item, and I look forward to receiving one every year (my parents always mock-protest the price, but I can tell they’re secretly kind of thrilled in a mildly illicit way to be buying a $40 candle!)
If this gorgeous French Bourbon Vanille candle sounds like something you might be interested in, you can peruse it and other Voluspa products at Indigo.com, Canadian home to all sorts of fun ways to part with your money, and of course, through Voluspa itself.
Finger Candy 
That first picture is just gorgeous!
Thanks! That’s actually my bedside end table. 🙂
I am drooling. These photos! That mercury glass!! That scent!! I have picked up my fair share of Voluspa candles at Anthropology but never pulled the trigger. You have officially enabled me. I will be buying this scent when I run across it next. Thank you for the fabulous review. I get all heart eyed over a chic candle. I think they have a big sale on their website every now and then. Maybe I can catch one.
That’s awesome! Although, maybe not so awesome for your willpower? Enabling is far too easy! The next time I’m in Chapters I’m going to see if they’ve got a little tinned guy and I’ll send it your way – that way you can see if it’s giant glass jar-worthy (oh, but those jars are lovely; I’ve got them dotted around some of my rooms.)
Pingback: Queen of Hearts | Finger Candy