Previously in What Your ____ Says About You: Posters and cats.
Sugar Cookie: It is deeply important to you that you be thought of as a welcoming person. You have been known to refer to your house as a “refuge,” and sometimes hope that others say the same thing about it when you are not around.
“Odor Remover”: You are not messy because you do not care about cleanliness; you are messy because the thought that you are responsible for your own environment has literally never occurred to you. It makes no difference to you. Periodically you find yourself attached to someone who takes it upon herself to clean up after you, and you are cheerfully willing to let her do so. You did not ask her to do it, but she will expect you to be grateful, although she may not say so. It will also never occur to you to thank her, or to acknowledge her, or to inquire what compels her to pick up what you leave behind. “Just don’t worry about it” is the only advice you know how to give. After she is gone, you are equally cheerful about doing nothing at all. You are never angry at anyone, but there is always someone who is angry at you, although you do not know it.
Sandalwood/Ylang-Ylang: You own an old record player that is still in excellent working condition and have nothing but disdain for people who own record players with iPhone docks.
Anything where the name of the candle gives no hint as to what it might smell like (e.g. “Cleopatra,” “Paddington Library,” “Triptych”): You cannot help yourself from correcting other people, even when you are not yourself entirely sure that you are right. “Actually,” you hear yourself say, and your voice is high and hateful in your own ears. “Actually, that’s not true.” You are not sure if it is true, but you want to make sure that no one accidentally believes anything they don’t have to.
Apple Cider/Apple Pie: You surround yourself with the shadow of food. Coworkers and friends often ask, “Is that all you’re having for lunch?” You buy everything that can be scented or flavored of food without actually being food. Your lip gloss tastes like food. Your perfume smells like food. Your house smells like food, but you are not cooking and you are not eating, and you are always hungry. But you smell satisfied.
Ocean Breeze: You are deeply invested in the idea of “spoiling yourself,” largely because if you do not do it, no one else will. You spend your one week of vacation at a spa with your favorite cousin, and it is always the best week of the year.
Lemon Verbena: You hate the word “moist” and watching scary movies. “You guys,” you say to your friends, if anyone in your group talks about going to see one. “You guys, you know I can’t,” as if you are fatally allergic to them. Most of them find you faintly ridiculous and more than a little weak for it; at least one secretly appreciates your speaking up about it so they don’t have to. You feel increasingly insulted every time someone brings it up, as if they are doing it to spite you personally. One of them is.
Chai/Cinnamon Chai/Vanilla Chai/Chocolate Chai: You regularly bring homemade baked goods into the office “for no reason.” The reason is that you want to be enormously beloved. You want people to notice when you are not there, and to ask about how you’re doing, and to think about how you will feel about things before they make decisions that affect you. People thank you for the baked goods, but almost always in a way that suggests they have become used to it and frankly expect it of you. If you forgot, they would briefly resent you, then forget about it entirely.
Something that is not a candle that plugs into the wall, but behaves like a candle: Sometimes, when you are down to your last $100, you will go to Target and fill a shopping cart with $20 shirtdresses and skin-sensitive sunscreen and three-for-one packs of brand-name gum. You promise yourself you will ditch the cart before you reach the checkout counter. Your stomach feels hot and thick the closer you get to the counter without abandoning the cart. You can’t afford this, the scanner reminds you with every beep. You can’t afford any of this. The next day, you will mention off-hand that “I just can’t go into Target without spending everything!” and your friends will laughingly agree. Where do other people get money from, you wonder. How can you become one of those people. You find yourself thinking of money in terms of types of people, rather than types of behavior or types of circumstances. Some people can’t help but attract money. They start out with it and they are wrapped in it and they are flooded with it and they cannot see beyond themselves from the thickness of it. You are not that person. Your house smells wonderful, like syrup and wax and bright, bold colors, and you are terrified, and you never look at your balance when the ATM prompts you to.
Rosemary/Thyme: You subscribe to Real Simple magazine and clean your house exclusively with Mrs. Meyer’s products. You often express a desire to “eat clean,” and your boyfriend is friendly and unobjectionable. The two of you regularly take trips together, and you spent last Christmas with his family (his mother loves you, although not quite as much as you think) but have not yet brought up the subject of moving in with one another.
Clean Linen: You fall asleep within ten minutes of getting into bed, and you almost never wake up in the middle of the night. You have no idea that this is unusual.
Tags: cleaning up after yourself, food, hunger, identity, relationships, scented candles, who you are
“Nothing” – your husband is deeply, disappointingly averse to anything that has any kind of scent, except for the cheap “air freshener” (poo-smell cover-up) spray in the bathroom, which he sprays with wild abandon until the entire house smells like nasty chemical lavender.
For real, what about us plain candle people?
I expected the list to end with “Unscented:” and then just a fat paragraph of blank space.
My mom hates scents so we never had anything growing up, but then my sister got into weird fake scents so when I go home the bedroom whichever kid is home sleeps in smells weird.
What if you owned something called Pink Sands (which, by definition, should smell like saltwater and dirty toes)? Does it fall into the Ocean Breeze category? If your Pink Sands wall plug-in is emitting tropical-esque squirts of fragrance and no one is in the house to smell it, does it smell like anything?
“Lemon Verbena” is definitely me, but my friends long ago gave up asking me to go to scary movies. I also have a Rosemary Thyme candle, and eat clean, if “eat clean” means “food that isn’t covered with dirt.”
What if your candles always smell like Christmas? Like you buy candles that you don’t expect to smell like Christmas, but still they smell like Christmas?
I was going to do that, and then I forgot, and then I wanted to get lunch so I published it anyway. You’re great and normal.
Huge relief. THANKS MALLORY MERRY CHRISTMAS.
I don’t have any candles.
UNCOMFORTABLY ACCURATE
Damn it, Mallory, I thought I had escaped this one, because most of my candles smell like trees or incense, and none of the other descriptions sound anything like me. Then I got to the Rosemary/Thyme one, and remembered that I have a rosemary candle, and the description was me.
Yes, there is a whole of class piney scented candles, which are my favorite because why would I ever not want my apartment to smell like an alpine grove? Also, beeswax.
You do have to be picky about them, though, because the cheap ones just smell like pine sol.
ooh this is me precisely too, from the pines/incense candles to the eating clean and unobjectionable boyfriend.
I only just escaped, but I think unscented beeswax may also count as rosemary thyme because we did spend christmas with his folks last year, don’t live together, and I have basil ms meyers bathroom cleaner. Also do not subsribe to real simple because I hate getting paper in the mail, but I READ DESIGN SPONGE ONLINE ALL THE TIME, CONSTANTLY, READING IT RIGHT NOW. And I worm compost. God, I’m a monster and also a type.
Terrified of open flames. (This made moving into an apartment with a gas stove a bit tricky.)
Like I actually want to BE rosemary/thyme + clean linen mixed together. Aspirational candle personality.
I think I might be the Lemon Verbena + Chai person except all of my candles smell like burning wood or burning leaves or bonfires.
Also Apple Cinnamon Yankee Candles smell like America to me, because that’s what my Aunt’s house would smell like when I’d go visit.
And, now I’m singing “Little Pink Houses” by John (formerly Cougar) Mellencamp.
I bet his house smells like Apple Cinnamon.
I want a candle that smells like burning leaves. What is this candle?
I’ve found them in all kinds of places. I have one from Target (I think it’s called bonfire nights) that is one of their wooden wick candles. I also got a great big tower candle (also with a wooden wick) from JC Penney that is named after a few types of wood that smells great and like burning cedar. I find wooden wick candles are the best (they have a stronger smell, which is great for when I’m trying to air out my studio apartment after cooking) and they have a nice crackling sound. I think for burning leaves/bonfire type candles they add a little extra pizzaz and go well with the scent.
Bath & Body Works has some – Marshmallow Fireside smells like bonfires with a touch of sweetness. It’s my husband’s favorite.
” After she is gone, you are equally cheerful about doing nothing at all. You are never angry at anyone, but there is always someone who is angry at you, although you do not know it.”
Am suddenly reminded of an ex, and my friends’ exes, and all exes in general.
*slight gnashing of teeth*
No Candles: You are highly allergic to anything aromatic, and you are only alive today because of the miracles of modern immunotherapy (i.e., allergy shots). In a past life you were a consumptive English maiden who fell ill every time she walked on the moor.
Case in point: I love Method cleaning products, but I can’t use the daily shower spray because it’s scented with ylang-ylang, to which I am apparently quite allergic. Dammit.
Does this work in reverse? Can I become someone who falls asleep within 10 minutes if I buy Clean Linen scented candles?
I am that asleep-in-10-mins person but I have no candles. I do put lavender oil in the machine when I do the linens cycle, though?
Odor Removers unite! I agree, if people would just relax. It’s just a glass! And maybe a plate. Also I am totally reading this whole pile of books by the couch. It’s ok. Really! Why are we yelling.
(I don’t use candles unless I am making fish in the kitchen, then I use a plain white one to burn off odors. And wooden matches in the bathroom. Striking a match and letting it burn for a couple seconds works way better than Febreze or those nasty things for neutralizing, um, fragrant emissions.)
also we should be required to state candle preference in commenter names. As someone who has Cleopatra as her rising candle, I need to know when I’m dealing with a Lemon Verbena.
Present.
I’m madly in love with the Glade air freshener ones named “Cashmere Woods.” Which have Sandalwood in them. Sandalwood and something else. I also have a really nice “orange pekoe tea” candle that my sister in law gave me that smells absolutely heavenly. I also like candles that smell like Christmas trees (or gin, can we call them gin candles?).
Candles that smell like food are the worst to me, I always hate them. Sweet or spicy, I hate them all.
Tropical Hibiscus: You aren’t quite sure what, exactly, a hibiscus looks like other than maybe brightly colored and sort of spiky and tropical looking?, and you are unlikely to find out in-person, as you are not someone who would ever choose to spend your leisure time in the sun, removing sand from every bodily crevice and article of clothing. You bought this candle in a headshop because it promised to cover up the smell of smoke, just generalized “smoke” of any kind wink wink. Your other options were “Mulberry and Spice” which smelled like Christmas at the house of the grandmother you only ever visit at Christmas for good reason, and “Lavender,” which is always trying to trick people into thinking mundane tasks are luxurious and for which reason makes you harbor a deep suspicion of it. You soak the jar in warm water until you can peel the label off so your parents won’t suspect its true purpose, even though you are 25, because you still live at home (even though you are 25).”
Umm, I maybe like clean linen scented things and that sleep thing maybe might describe me. Get out of my brain!
Sometimes if I’m being terrible I run my towels through the dryer for 15 minutes just for fun.
Then I take a shower.
Then I take a nap.
And later I sleep for 8 hours. It’s great.
OMG, Cleopatra is my favorite scented candle. I have a big one and a couple of minis.
I don’t really use them that much. I’m not a scented-candle person, mostly because the only ones that actually work to scent a room are the ones that smell cheap and awful to me.
I do like odor-removing candles and sprays, though. I do not have an “odor” issue in my slobby yet sanitary home, but they do freshen stale air nicely.
The only candle in my apartment is one that’s shaped like Lenin’s head that belongs to my roommate. I don’t think it has a scent and I don’t think he’ll ever burn it. I don’t think he even wants it, but what can you do with something like that?
I do like the idea of candles, but I don’t know when I’d ever use them. When does one burn a candle? When you’re sitting alone in your bed watching Netflix? When you have someone over (pre or post sex?)? Candle people, how does this work.
I don’t follow the candles = canoodling thing. Candles are Me Time. I light them when I take a bubble bath sometimes, or when I’m locked away in my study at home, writing.
Also, a lot of times rodents die in the walls at work, so I use them at my desk. (Not sexy. Necessary, but not sexy.)
I had a boyfriend with OCD who freaked out when I lit a candle in the bedroom. What a controller he was.
I have them in the kitchen. Candles make any meal instantly 2x cozier in the cold dark months!
What can you do with a wax Lenin head? You can lay it down in a tiny coffin and invite people to pay a nominal amount to shuffle past it respectfully, just like the real wax Lenin in Red Square.
There was an awesome samizdat story about how guys who looked something like Lenin kept disappearing from Moscow streets, and people started noticing that Wax Lenin looked a bit different every time they visited.
Not sure what this has to do with Wax Lenin Head, especially since wax Lenin candles are probably few and far between…
I don’t ever use candles, but this post caused me to revisit the posters one and it is still so unbelievably accurate. A+ all around.
Stares at “Edgar Allen Poe”-scented candle mournfully, pulls covers over head.
I HAVE THE SAME CANDLE.
It smells delicious, and not at all like interpersonal dysfunction.
It really is the best-smelling candle I’ve ever owned.
Snowflake/Gingerbread/Winter Pine: You enjoy celebrating the winter holidays, but a combination of miserliness, seasonal depression, and a series of past minor holiday failures keeps you from decorating your place in any significant manner. Every year you think about getting a small Christmas tree for your apartment, and every year you’re afraid that it will look lonesome and sad, perched on your crappy little bookshelf. You always go to your parents’ house every Christmas anyway; it’s bright and gently joyful. Occasionally you think about how old your parents are, and how old your grandparents were when they died, and a desperate miserly feeling wells up in your chest.
But what is the type of candle that will get me to stop doing the ‘actually …’ thing?
(not a candle but) Semi-pricey Japanese incense in lovely, minimalist packaging: You are a design snob who reads design blogs and a smell snob who reads perfume blogs, and buy this incense to convince yourself you’ve grown out of your high school gross-headshop-incense phase, though you haven’t, really.
oh my god they have PERFUME BLOGS
There is a blog for anything. It’s like porn: if you can think about it, a blog for it exists.
Ones big enough that I unsubscribed from because there were too many posts per day. There are blogs, and databases, and forums, and scandals, and meet-ups. It’s a bizarrely huge thing.
Autumn Leaves/Pumpkin Spice: You go out of your way to step on a crunchy-looking leaf, and hoard back issues of Martha Stewart Living (but never actually make anything because, phew, exhausting!). You get excited about holidays way earlier than is socially acceptable and start watching Halloween episodes of your favorite sitcoms in mid-August. You also binge-watch RuPaul’s Drag Race and lament having been born a girl because now you can never be a drag queen and wear *that* much eye makeup.
PLEASE GET OUT OF MY BASEMENT.
This is entirely too accurate for my life.
Wait, where do I get a Paddington Library scented candle? I need that.
Signed,
Lemon Verbena, except I’ve never had that candle (mulberry! sea mist! all the vanillas: french, cream, chai!) and should probably go shopping now.
Blackberry sage, anyone?
You love potlucks and anything that is a “one-pot meal.” Your loop scarf ordered from Etsy is your favorite scarf, so much so that people remark on it being your trademark.
Cripes. have you met me? (Although I haven’t got a loop scarf from etsy – but I do have a gunslinger’s belt. I’m sure that counts.) I am far too lazy to cook anything in more than one pot on a regular basis.
Actually, I just prefer scents that don’t remind me of anything too concrete, because the ones that do just confuse my brain. Like, if I have a cookie-scented candle, I just start to crave cookies, and then I bake some and eat them all in one sitting. So there.
Is that not what you’re meant to do?
Is it weird that I can’t hear the phrase ‘lemon verbena’ and not immediately think of Scarlett O’Hara’s mother, Ellen, along with her softly rustling skirts and her immaculate handkerchiefs?
Sweet Olive Blossom, specifically this one, because if I can’t make their clothes work on me, I WILL smell like them, dammit.
But also, yes, Lemon Verbena.
Used to be an Odor Remover, now an Aspiring Sugar Cookie. Since I’m no longer filthy I don’t need to cover anything up, and I’m too lazy to maintain any more home activities.
I’m a combo Lemon Verbena and Clean Linen. Never watching scary movies is my secret to sleeping so well.
“Something that is not a candle” is like Mallory looked back into time at 18 year old me.
*shudder*
300 years ago they would have burned you for a witch, Mallory Ortberg.
All of mine smell like baked goods and now my lonely heart is afraid.
I have a huge amount of unscented tea light candles. TELL ME WHO I AM MALLORY!
Perfect. You are perfect.
Mint Basil. GO.
Oil diffuser: You enjoy cassis-flavored drinks and you indulge your sweet tooth with organic candy that you get in bulk. You own monogrammed 600 thread count sheets, and when you run out of cash at the bar, you roll your eyes at your friends and say, “You guys, DON’T let me buy anymore nice underwear this month.” Your gif folder is extensive and extensively organized. You make a point to be way more stylish than your parents.
Eucalyptus tea lights: When you were in college, you imagined your twenties would involve buying vintage furniture from dusty old antique shops. You’ve resigned yourself to buying home necessities at Target. “Some day,” you think to yourself, “some day I’ll have furniture that isn’t made out of particle board.”
I was going to ask what having more than a dozen different candle scents (including five mentioned above) means but I already know: you are a person who will always some relatively cheap indulgence you are obsessed with shopping for. First it was nail polish, then it was body lotion, now candles. Every time you kick one habit you think you’re better now, not realizing you have a new obsession.
Oh nooo, I’m a vanilla, except that I think it actually smells like cookies before my boyfriend always comes home and is like, “You baked COOKIES?” and then I have to disappoint him every time (I then inform him that HE could make cookies, but he sees it as more work than it’s worth, so we never have any cookies).
This is marvelous.
Wait. People wake up in the middle of the night? Is this how I find out that Clean Linen is my One True Scent? (I mean I love it but always thought of myself as more of a Lilac girl.)
Cheap scented tea lights from IKEA that we only use when boyfriend farts? Many times in succession? (keeping it honest)
I remember the days when we were wealthy enough to indulge in the occasional Edgar Allen Poe or Walt Whitman candle. I think I prefer sandalwood-y incense best, though.
Diptyque Baies???? The black one, because it looks kind of witchy.
If I let my boyfriend buy the candles, my house would smell like I spilled a box of cinnamon and didn’t clean it up. You hit his personality on the head with Cinnamon Chai! I will bake a special treat for our family like cookies from scratch, and he will take half of them to work to give away! He gets all puffed up when someone eats what he brought and is almost beside himself with happiness! lol
What if I like Vanilla but not sugar cookie candles? WHAT IF I LIKE VANILLA.