2011 Holiday Gift Guide

Best No-Brainer Gift: Nest Holiday Candle
The quintessential holiday fragrance with a blend of mandarine orange, cinnamon, pine and eucalyptus. The Nest Holiday candle is a staple on our gift list. This fragrance best encapsulates the holidays. It's not overly tree or fruity and it's not sweet or gourmand. It's fresh, festive and brings back memories from years gone by. Be sure to buy more than one! If you buy one as a gift, you won't want to give it up. The 3-wick size is gorgeous and can be re-used as a flower vase when the candle is done.
Classic, 8 oz, 50 hours $32
Votive, 2.3 oz, 15 hours $14
Mini votive 6-pack, 2-3 hours each $32
Diffuser, 5.9 oz, approx 4 months, $34



Best Hostess Gift: Voluspa 2-wick Metallo Candles
The 2-wick metallo candles by Voluspa are our #1 best-selling hostess gift. Customers go crazy over these beautiful tins. Voluspa candles offer clean burning coconut wax and 100% cotton wick. At just $16 each for approx 50 hours of burn time, these adorable tins can't be beat. Our favorite fragrance? The new Coeur de Cassis fragrance in the Maison D'or Collection.



Best Mission Impossible Gift: Lampe Berger Lamp
Looking for something for the person that has everything? The lamp only needs to be lit for 2 minutes, then provides luxurious fragrance while removing odors (think kitchen and pets) without any soot or smoke. Starting at just $43, there is a lamp for every decor and price range.



Best Stocking Stuffer: Antica Petite Diffusers
The petite diffusers by Antica make great stocking stuffers! At just 100ml each, they are also great for air travel to make any stale hotel room smell like home. Our favorite fragrance for the winter months? Sandalwood Amber with rich notes of sandalwood, soft amber, musk and vanilla bean.



Best Office Gift: Nest 6-Votive Gift Set
The new Nest 6-votive gift set is an instant charmer! We fell in love at first site. Featuring the six best-selling Nest Fragrances (Bamboo, Wasabi Pear, Moroccan Amber, Orange Blossom, Moss & Mint and Grapefruit), this attractive gift set is perfect for your co-worker or Mom. Well priced at $40.



Best Luxury Gift: Hervé Gambs Candle
It isn't often we're floored by a candle line, but Herve Gambs had us at first sniff. Every fragrance is divine and unique. Our favorite? Noir de Cassis with delicious notes of blackcurrant seeds infused with vanilla and amber santal.



Most Charming Gift: Simpatico Hobnail Candles
These oversized, vintage, hobnail candles will charm any gift recipient. Filled with 100% vegetable wax, these candles last approximately 100 hours and can be easily washed out with soap and water and reused as a flower vase, makeup holder or pen/pencil holder. If you have a tea lover, the #2 Tea fragrance is warming and relaxing with notes of camellia leaf, and oils of bergamot, orange, and myrrh.



Best Gift to Impress: Lafco Candles
Weighing in at well over a pound, these extra large candles are sure to impress. Each candle is poured in a 4” x 4” hand-blown glass vessel that will become a keepsake for generations to come. Each vessel is unique and offers a mesmerizing glow when it’s burning. Our favorite this time of year? Foyer (Amber Vanilla) with notes of black vanilla and warm amber and patchouli.



Best Tool: Wick Snuffer/Tweezer
The only way we extinguish candles at home is with a candle tweezer/snuffer. Simple pinch the wick dipper to extinguish the flame with out any smoke or soot. At just $3.75, they make a great stocking stuffer for any candle-lover.



Most Thoughtful Gift: Bayberry Tapers
"A bayberry candle, burned to the socket, puts luck in the home, food in the larder, and gold in the pocket." Our favorite holiday gift is true bayberry tapers. It's an old New England tradition to burn bayberry tapers to the nub on Christmas Eve or New Years Eve for health and prosperity in the year to come. Everyone loves this thoughtful, scent free gift.

How to Use a Lampe Berger Lamp

Lampe Berger is a fantastic product for removing odors (cooking, cigar/cigarette, pet, musty house, paint fumes....) while scenting the air and killing airborne bacteria. Lampe Berger was created over 100 years ago by a French pharmacist to remove odors and purify the air in hospitals. It has evolved over the years into a residential product with many different lamp styles and fragrances. Some lamps become collectors items and are worth thousands of dollars.

Lampe Berger fragrance oils can be blended to create your own special recipe. I'll add a separate blog post later for Lampe Berger fragrance combinations. If you have a recipe you'd like to share, please post a comment below.

To Use a Lampe Berger, follow these easy steps:

1. Place your Lampe Berger lamp on a stable surface.
2. Fill lamp approximately 3/4 full with fragrance oil of your choice. We recommend using Neutral to soften any fragrance you find too strong.
3. Insert the Lampe Berger wick into the lamp completely. When using for the first time, let the wick soak for 20 minutes before using.
4. Light the wick. After 2 minutes blow out the flame.
5. Put the vented cover back on the Lampe Berger. Your Lampe Berger is now working to remove odors, purify and fragrance the air. While the lamp is working, there is no smoke or flame, just a little heat coming off the top of the lamp.
6. Once your Lampe Berger has removed odors (after about 10-15 minutes) and added enough fragrance for you (usually about 20 minutes), carefully remove the vented cover and place the solid cap back on the Lampe Berger. The quicker you put the solid cap on your Lampe Berger, the longer your fragrance oil will last.

That's it! If you have any questions or comments, please post a comment below. We'd love to hear from you.

How to set up & use a reed diffuser

Reed diffusers provide a constant fragrance. The reeds work like a wick to draw the fragrance up and into the air as the fragrance oil evaporates over time. Fragrance oil diffusers are particularly helpful in areas where you always want it to smell nice but can't always keep an eye on a candle, such as a foyer or a powder room.

If you find the fragrance of your reed diffuser is too subtle, flip the reeds to freshen the scent. You can flip a few reeds every few days or all the reeds every day depending on the size of your space and how strong you like your fragrance. The more reeds you flip, and the more often you flip them, will cause the oil to evaporate quicker. Be sure to keep your diffuser away from windows, which can also speed up evaporation.

If you purchase a reed diffuser where the oil is separate from the vase, you may not want to fill the vase completely with the oil. Leave some room at the top so that when you insert the reeds there is room for the oil to rise. The oil level will quickly drop as it is soaked up by the reeds. When there is enough room you can add the remaining oil. If your diffuser is packaged with the oil already in the vase, use caution when inserting the reeds to avoid overflow. It's good practice to add just one reed at a time making sure that the oil level doesn't get too high after each addition.

Initially reed diffusers can be quite strong in scent when you first set them up until they settle after about a week. If you find that your fragrance diffuser is still too strong for your space, simply remove some of the reeds and store them in a zip lock bag for later use. Less reeds will produce less fragrance.

If you're not a fan of the vase that came with your diffuser, you can use any glass vase or bottle you may have at home. Look for a glass decanter with a small opening to avoid too much dust and debris clouding the oil. Some fragrance diffuser companies sell just the refill oil and reeds separately so you can create your own, custom diffuser at home. k. hall is an excellent line for purchasing refill oil and reeds.

As always, feel free to email us with any questions you may have at info@candlesoffmain.com. We welcome your comments below.

Smoke signals

A candle with a nice, tight, steady flame will burn cleanly without soot or smoke. Every time before you light your candles, be sure to trim the wick to 1/4". If you candle ever smokes, flickers or creates soot, simply extinguish the candle (we use wick dippers to extinguish a candle without any smoke), trim the wick a little more, and relight. Some candle lines are more finicky than others and need to be trimmed just right. You may have to re-trim these candles after they've been burning for a few minutes (to get the wick the right height) or a few hours (if the wick gets too long or creates a fragrance bloom while burning).

Wick trimmers are a handy tool to trim wicks. The base of the wick trimmer is 1/4" thick to automatically measure the height of the wick for you. Simply rest the base of the wick trimmer on the top of the wax and the wick is trimmed at the correct length without guesswork. Wick trimmers also have a "tray" at the bottom to collect the wick debris and lift it out of the candle. We've found that the Wickman Wick Trimmer works the best on any wick since it has a sharp edge to cut even new wicks.

Any candle that is disturbed enough with flicker, smoke and drip. For that reason, be sure to keep your candles out of drafts from ceiling fans, air vents and windows.

Trim, light, enjoy!

Grand Opening of our Cyber Store!

Our Cyber Store is now open! While our shop in historic downtown Annapolis, Maryland is open, we will stream live onto our website. We can show you products, answer questions and help in any way. Click here to go to our live page.

Audio is mute during our broadcast for privacy and security. Call us at 866-786-1043 for assistance.

As always, please post any comments below or email us at Info@CandlesOffMain.com.

Thank you!
Dave & Sue Adams