These candles smell like home, and they're the perfect gift this holiday season
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The holiday season is all about families and friends coming together to celebrate, eat good food, and open presents. But sometimes, you can't make it home for the holidays and you end up feeling a bit homesick. There's one sure-fire way to erase the holiday blues and that's with an awesome candle that will conjure memories of your home city, state, or favorite experience.
Homesick makes classic white candles with customized scents for each of the 50 states, several cities, and experiences like being in grandma's kitchen, smelling books, or heading off to summer camp.
It may sound crazy, but scent is very closely tied to memory. That's why when you smell cookies baking in the oven, you feel like you're back in your kitchen helping grandma decorate cookies with icing and sprinkles.
To come up with the customized scents for each city and state, Homesick polled people from those areas to find out what home smelled like to them. The results range from the hilarious — like Jewish Christmas, which smells like, "Buttered popcorn and a movie at the local theatre followed by an overindulgence of Chinese food with friends and family," — to the classics, like Grandma's Kitchen, which smells like "The scents of rich butter mixed with touches of apple, cinnamon, clove and a hint of sugar cookie. Tonka bean and sugar finish out this homey aroma."
Each candle is made from all-natural soy wax, which is hand-poured into a classy glass container. The simple black and white labels look cool and let you know what candle you're smelling. The candles come in cute, colorful boxes, making them perfect gifts for anyone who wants a whiff of nostalgia in their home away from home. Homesick's candles are also really reasonably priced at $29.95 and you get free one-day shipping on Amazon.
We tried two Homesick candles: New York City and Holiday. Keep scrolling to see what we thought of them.
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Homesick's New York City candle smells like Macy's in Herald Square
Homesick Candles
As denizens of New York City, the Insider Picks team typically remembers the malodorous smells we catch a whiff on the street rather than the candle's idealistic "scents of spring days in Central Park, Fine department stores, and concrete."
Insider Picks reporter Mara Leighton said it best when she described the candle as "what New York smells like in your dreams before you actually move here." Still, we cannot deny that the candle smells a lot like Macy's in Herald Square, of that the scent is infinitely preferable to the iffy smell of the city streets and the subway.
When I burned the NYC candle in my apartment, it smelled amazing. The gentle scent made my entire apartment smell great, and it burned evenly without whittling down the wick at all even after several hours.
Buy the Homesick New York City candle on Amazon for $29.95 (Currently out of stock, but other cities are available)
Homesick's Holiday candle smells like Grandma's house in the woods
Homesick Candle
The Holiday candle hit all the right notes with its scents of "freshly cut Pine trees and pomander balls; Mom's sugar cookies and Grandma's pies, warm from the oven." The whole Insider Picks team agreed that it smelled wonderful.
I brought it home to test in my apartment, and it was wonderful. Just like the NYC candle, it burned evenly and beautifully all evening long. The scent of this Holiday candle is even more aromatic and lovely — especially for this time of year.
When I closed, my eyes, the gentle pine scent reminded me of Christmastime at my Grandma's house, which was surrounded by pine trees. The hint of cinnamon in there brought me right back to baking Swedish cinnamon buns with her, too. It's my favorite of the two I tried.
There's nothing better than a beautiful candle to bring holiday cheer and coziness to your home.
Buy the Homesick Holiday candle on Amazon for $29.95
Homesick candles make a great gift
Homesick Candles
At $29.95, Homesick candles are so reasonably priced that you can get a different one for each person on your list. College students and new-ish grown-ups who are just getting started in a new city or state will love the nostalgia factor, and anyone who likes candles will appreciate how well made they are.