[♫ intro song plays ♫] - Hello friends, and welcome to another video! Today, I'm gonna be melting one of every candle from Bath & Body Works together into a Frankencandle. - That's right, bad makeup science is evolving into just... bad science, I guess. So I have previously mixed together every beauty guru's eyeshadow palette and every lipstick from Sephora, to find the average or most marketable eyeshadow or lipstick shade with generally pleasing results. And so, of course, my beady little eyes have been searching for something else to mix. And seeing that it is the holiday season, the first thing that came to my mind was Bath & Body Works, who go ham during the holidays with their seasonal candles. Now, Bath & Body Works has been around for a while. In the early to mid 2000s, they were especially notorious for their body sprays, of which I had many. But sometime over the years, their candle game has evolved into one of the most well-known parts of their brand. Helped by the demand they create with their large sale on Candle Day and the seasonal limited edition candles they release, people freak out about Bath & Body Works' candles. Az4Angela: I look around, there's barely anybody in the st-freaking store! *exhales loudly* Saf: and I'm not immune to this. I also love a good three wick burner, and they have such a large inventory of candles, they really do have something for every nose. So I was thinking, if I bought one of every candle that Bath & Body Works sells, particularly now, as they have both their normal odor inventory, as well as their holiday scents out, could I create the ultimate, layered megacandle of my wildest dreams? Something that works for all seasons, kind of like Christmas in July? Well, there's only one way to find out. All right! Let's do it! So we are outside Bath & Body Works right now, and we're gonna go in and try and buy one of every candle scent that they sell. Now, from looking at the website, we noticed that they have multiple listings for candles with the same name. Alright, so these both say Mahogany Teakwood. So before purchasing any, I wanted to see if they were actually different scents or just the same candle with different packaging. I think they're the same. So I guess we only need one of these. So, that's candle number 1. With that settled, I pretty much just got to work grabbing candles. And unlike lipsticks, candles are large and heavy. So my bag started filling up fast. I'm just covered in candles. Can I give you this bag? Tyler: Yes. - So after sweeping the store and going from display to display to make sure we had at least one of every scent available at this location... [candle falling]
(Safiya startled) Oooh! It's fine. ...we checked out. But even though we had what felt like a crap ton of candles, we soon realized we didn't have nearly as many as we had counted online. In fact, I'm pretty sure we only have about 60 candles in here. Oh! 55. 55 candles. Which is actually about half of all the candles we need. So we're gonna have to fill in some holes. Now when we brought our candles home, We cross-referenced them with the list of candles we found online, and quickly noticed that a fair amount of the candles we had bought in-store weren't listed on the website at all. And on top of that, most of the ones not listed were the limited edition holiday candles. So, I ordered every remaining candle that was available online and then hit another Bath & Body Works to see if there were any holiday ones that weren't at the first store. Saf: Luckily for us, they had plenty of Christmas candles. But unluckily for us, a lot of the Christmas candle names sound very similar to each other. But we did end up finding 27 more candles that we hadn't found either at the first store or online. So I would say that it was a success! And adding that to the 55 candles from the first store and the 35 candles ordered from the website, we ended up with 117 different candles. There were one or two that were sold out online and probably a couple that we didn't even know about and couldn't find, but I would say that we bought pretty close to every candle available from Bath and Body Works. Pretty damn close. Okay, so these are all of our candles untopped. Safiya: Decapped? Just to, ya know, see what I'm getting myself into. I mean with all of them open, I am getting like so many different scents in my nostrils, it's hard to think. Over here it's a little harder to say, but over here, it smells like Froot Loops I think. And just based on the fact that it smells kind of different as I move around, I don't think that we'll be able to figure out what the final scent will be just from this, so I think it's time to start figuring out how exactly we're going to melt all of these together. So I'm going to categorize these candles into sorta like, scent families just based on which ones I think go together. They do also list the fragrance notes for each candle on the bottom of the jar as well as on the website. But for my purposes, I'm gonna be grouping them sort of subjectively. And once they're all sorted, my process is to basically take a melon baller and scoop out a little bit of wax from each candle to put into our mixture. And hopefully one scoop from over 100 candles will gather together enough wax to make one candle! The Frankencandle. The Frank & Body Works. Safiya: Also this hot plate is not on. I'm gonna put in all the wax cold first and then melt it later. So our first scent category is foods. Not Christmas foods, more like brunch foods. And I'm gonna start off with this one: French Baguette. Now this is our only single wick candle, because it's the only one we couldn't find in a three wick. Other ones are available in the smaller jar but I like the big ones. Oh! That smells wonderful! It smells like a toasted croissant. Alright, so I'm gonna start scooping. This one has like the smallest surface area to scoop, so this one might be tough. Saf: Oh my God. Saf: Oh there we go- there we go! Tyler: Oh yeah! Saf: Alright, so next I'm gonna use this like giant toothpick to poke the wax out of the melon baller. Cause it's, not stuck, but, you know, it's waxy. And with that, we have one candle down, hundreds to go! Well, like a hundred and a few. Alright, so lets start getting into our groove here. You know what I mean? Lets start scooping. Saf: Let's start... ballin'! I raise my leg like a - like a stork. Saf: That's how I ball. So in this food category, we have 10 candles, most of which are generally sweet. And the majority of their fragrance notes have to do with vanilla, sugar, sea salt, and different fruits. Namely peaches, lemons, and all kinds of berries. And though I would say a lot of them have similar notes, they do have varying levels of boldness. Tyler: What is that?
Saf: Oh! (disgusted noise) I feel like there's just like two buckets of candles. Like candles you can stick your face in, and candles that stick their face in you. Oooooaaaaaaah! Like this Banana Split Milkshake candle is almost offensive, but it's not even the baddest of the bunch. Okay, so this one is a Blueberry Maple Pancake candle, which smells a little bit like if IHOP got smacked in the face by a blueberry. (Tyler laughing)
Saf: Yep. And the smell actually gets stronger when I dig into it with the melon baller. Saf: (overwhelmed) Ooooooaaahhh! That's a strong one. Mr. Grinch. And then this is the last food-scented candle, at least until we get to the seasonal ones. And this one is called Georgia Peach. (Southern accent) There's been a murder in Savannah, Georgia! I know that like no one from Georgia really talks like that anymore... Saf: But I'm really just referencing The Office right now. So with all of that wax scooped, let's take a whiff of our concoction so far. Ooh! (Saf laughing) Right now, I pretty much smell only blueberries, but we'll see what happens over the next couple of hours. So next up, we're moving on to what I would call the "spa scent" category. And I would generalize them by saying, it seems like it would be nice if someone sprayed it on your face. So a big staple for the notes in this section is flowers, in addition to the somewhat ambiguous water fragrance, which I think kinda fits the spa theme, as well as a speckling of citrus. And I think that in general, these sort of like floral, leafy spa scents are a little less pungent. They're more of a fragrance than an odor. And I think that maybe because of their subtlety, some of them really strum some nostalgia strings. Like Villa Bergamot. This one smells like the gift shop at Colonial Williamsburg. And White Tea & Ginger, which smells like... ...my baby doll did when I was 5. Saf: Yes, definitely! (laughs) Alright. So checking back in with the pot... Hmm. Mm-hmm. It definitely smells a little more floral, but I'm still smelling the blueberry. I am! I swear I am! With like a touch of lemon-something. Alright. So after this category, I have three candles that all smell like Abercrombie & Fitch. All of them are like some variation on teakwood, which must just mean Abercrombie & Fitch smell. Oh yeah. That's Abercrombie. I know this scent well. It haunts me in my dreams. I just hear like, pounding house music and I smell this scent. They also have this one called Mahogany Teakwood High Intensity, which is for when you wanna smell like you went into Abercrombie & Fitch with your friends in 2007 and never left. And then the next category is six aromatherapy candles, with two eucalyptus candles kinda like thrown in the bunch. And after all those, our concoction smells like... Blueberry. (laughing) With a dash of like, soap. So I'm not sure if any of the therapeutic elements of these candles are gonna make it through to the final mixture. I don't know if anyone can truly be relaxed when smelling that blueberry one. So our next category is summer. So I'm gonna start off this round with Island Margarita. There are 18 candles in this category, and actually, a fair amount of them are named after drinks. Now we do have an entire separate section of alcoholic drinks coming up next, but I would say that these are like SUMMER drinks. And in terms of the scents, coconut, as well as other fruit like mango and pineapple, are well-represented. There's also a few candles with general ocean scents and assorted wood smells. Ocean Driftwood kinda smells like Hollister. I guess teakwood smells like Abercrombie, and driftwood smells like Hollister. I will say though that I think that most of the candles in this section smell pretty nice, and they are making our mixture smell more like coconut. That may be though because there are a lot of tropical candles on top, so we'll see when it melts who really comes out. ...on top. So next up, let's move on to the New Year's/alcoholic drinks category. So first up in this round is Champagne Toast. Which smells... I think I've lost the ability to smell. It says it's supposed to smell like champagne, berries, and tangerine. I do smell some berries. But it's almost like berry Tums. Besides that, I would say the candles in this category are meant to smell sort of like party drinks, cologne, or perfume. For example, the most popular notes are champagne, fruit, manly scents like sandalwood, driftwood, and leather, and perfumey scents like patchouli amber and peonies. Party Dress actually smells kind of good! Unfortunately, it seems that after about 50 candles, my ability to smell is somewhat going away. In The Stars kinda smells like Party Dress. Now I think I forget what Party Dress smells like. Can I get high from this? (Tyler laughing) Saf: Alright, and then this last one of the festive category is called Black Tie. And it smells... also like Party Dress. (Tyler laughing)
Saf: I'm confused. Okay. So with that, we're done with the New Year's celebration, alcohol category, and we're moving on into the more seasonal candles. So I'm gonna go for a quick walk to clear out my nose and then we'll move on to the fall candles. So this section has 10 candles, And I would say the general vibe is things you would smell or eat or wear around a bonfire. With common notes such as cinnamon/clove, wood, sugar, and a little bit of pumpkin. They're kinda like the candles that Bath & Body Works probably tries to sell before it's like really couth to put out the Christmas candles. It's like the early November candles. Saf: Exactly. This one smells kinda like Michaels, like craft store. Tyler: Oh, yeah. Saf: I just wanna— (candle fights back) OHHH! It exploded. Sorry. I got... too excited. And as for how our mixture smells after the autumn scents, I think I am picking up on some of the cloves that were left behind. Though I am still smelling a lot of, like, the fruitier scents from earlier. So we've got cloves and fruits. Take that as you will. So next up is our winter category. which I categorized by taking candles that were definitely seasonal, but were not specifically Christmas-themed. I would say they're more in like the snow, frosty, forest category. Tyler: A walk through the forest in December. Saf: Yes. So this group has 12 candles and they're generally supposed to smell like trees, like cedar, pine, and fir, as well as spices, like cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. There are also a few citrus notes, berry notes, and plant-y notes. As well as one super-sweet hot cocoa candle that doesn't have like any of the other notes we mentioned. Oh, this is a bold one. But it's definitely winter-ish. (overwhelmed) Oooh. Ooh-hooh. (candle resists) Whoah! Saf: All is well. Saf: Sparkling Woods just came for my wig. Saf: I know. I wonder... what will be the wig of 2019? My money's on merkin. Woah! My merkin! It's flown! Okay. And with that, we are done with the non-denominational winter scents. I will say that some of these upcoming aren't necessarily "denominational," but I feel like they are more specifically Christmas-targeted, either with their packaging, or with their names. First up, we have general Christmas. Okay. So right off the bat, something I'm very excited about is how many different colors there are in this pile. I feel like we could use a little sprucin' up! A little spice! This is Cherry Frost, but you know what I mean. And beyond the colors, this category fragrance-wise is pretty strongly characterized by a lot of vanilla. And once again, trees. Notably cedar wood and balsam. Kinda smells like a Christmas wreath. They also use the descriptors "frosted" and "snow-capped" a lot here, but I'm not sure exactly what that means. Also a fair amount of this packaging is holo. The thing is, I know that Cristine sent Bath & Body Works a cease and desist for trying to take some of her holosexual branding. So... I'm gonna say they probably got this from Cristine. Moving on.... This one's called Merry Mistletoe. It actually smells like Indian food. (Tyler laughing) Saf: It kinda smells like tamarind sauce. Saf: It also kinda smells like mint chutney. Though I find that often those two things are together. So... maybe I'm smelling a milieu of them both. And then to finish off our penultimate category, We have Frosted Coconut Snowball. A lot of words. That could mean a myriad of scents. Saf: Oh, yeah! I've never had one of those, but I've always wanted one. So now I want that and Indian food. Alright. So that was Christmas general. It smells... essentially like a psychedelic lemon bar. I think some of the tree scents are starting to read "lemon." If that makes sense? And I'm definitely smelling some sugar. So that's where like the lemon bar comes in. So now, onto the final category: Christmas foods/drinks! Christmas edibles. So this is our biggest category, with 24 candles. And the fragrance notes are basically just ingredients for like Christmas desserts. Like vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, caramel, orange, ginger, and my personal favorite, peppermint. Like here we've got some mint chocolate. Saf: Right? I wonder how it tastes. Tyler: It smells like mint ice cream— Saf: It tastes pretty good. Saf: Yeah. You want some? Saf: Don't eat candles at home, kids. Do as I say, not as I do. And besides having some tasty ones, this category also has some iconic Bath & Body Works candles. Ah! So up next we have Winter Candy Apple, which I'm pretty sure was one of the candles that the Bath & Body Works freak out lady freaked out about. - I don't know. I've been busy taking care of bitches all f***ing day! Saf: Ooh! Saf: I'm not sure it was. (laughs) It kinda smells like Juicy Juice or like Fruit Roll-Up. But listen, I get it. It's the principle of the thing. You know? They said they were in stock and then they weren't. I also could not believe that that happened in Appleton, Wisconsin. - Appleton, Wisconsin, I want everybody to know... This happened in Appleton. Saf: In general, I would say these Christmas food scents are pretty hit or miss. They're not all bad, but they are all pretty strong. So if it's not a scent you like, you're pretty much out of luck. Kind of like with our final candle: Hot Buttered Rum. Ooooh. It kinda smells like root beer candy tastes. Saf: Candies, though.
Tyler: Yes. Saf: That's like a really bizarre and like maybe random reference. Tyler: No way, Saf: Really? Tyler: I think so. Saf: Is that mainstream? Let us know. Okay. So we are finally done scooping wax out of candles. Now let me just give my pot a little interstitial whiff, just to see how it smells before it's melted. Hmmm. (Tyler laughing offscreen) Maybe just like... peppermint berry sugar. But I guess we'll find out what it actually smells like after we melt it down. I think, though, my hands are a little tired and our noses are a little tired. So I'm gonna call it a night, and then in the morning, we'll check back in and melt it. Alright. So it's the next day, and because of Daylight Savings it's almost the next night. But regardless, we're gonna melt. Whoooh. Oh! It smells caramelly this morning.
(Tyler laughs offscreen) Afternoon. Evening. What time is it? Now I'm gonna turn on the hot plate to start melting the wax from below so we'll see, I guess, from above if anything starts happening. Okay. So it looks like after letting the mixture melt for about 20 minutes, It's definitely deflated. There was a decent amount of height to our wax mountain, and now it's more like a lump, maybe. Alright. So what I'm gonna do next is bring in this hairdryer. Just so we can heat up the top layers of wax because clearly the bottom layers are melting, and the top layer's just kinda chillin'. So with out wax shavings melting together, we are almost at our final Franken mixture. Now as we mentioned, we had 117 candles that were scooped for this experiment. And all of those candles had a total of 385 fragrance notes listed. Saf: And the most popular notes overall were any variation on wood, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, mint, orange, coconut, apple, clove, and musk. I will say though that some scents are just stronger than others. So even if they are listed less frequently, they might still poke through. I'm looking at you, demon blueberry. It kinda looks like a grape Jolly Rancher and malt liqueur. Alright. so after a little more hairdrying, it's melted into this, like, dark, potion-y looking concoction. Saf: (creepy voice) Hello, Clarice. And now it's time to mold it into a candle. So I've got a large Frankencandle jar right here and I have these kind of like wick adhesive thingies. So I'm just gonna stick three wicks in there. And once we've done that, I'm gonna tape the tails to the side of the jar so the wicks don't fall in while we're making the candle. Alright. There we go. Now I think all that's left is to pour the wax in. Should I go, like, down the middle? Saf: Alright, let me try. Saf: Oooooooh! Is that enough? Too much? Oh my God, it's a tall candle. Saf: Yeah! Saf: Wow! Oh, that's awesome! Oh my God, it's already hardening. Ooh, yeeeeeah! Yes! Tyler: It's hardening? Saf: Yes! It's already hardening, look at the outside. So I think our mixture is looking pretty cool right now. That ombre is everything. I might even say it's... lit? Saf: But it seems like it's gonna take a while to fully solidify. So let's just leave it here, leave this camera rolling so we can maybe get a little time-lapse situation, and then we will cut our wicks and smell our candle. Okay, so here it is. There she blows, as some would say. I think that in the end, she's really dried down to be kind of like, a dusty lavender color. Which is interesting, though I guess it makes sense thinking back to how many of those candles were blue and red. So I'm just gonna head upstairs to actually smell the candle. just because there are a lot of -uh- competing fragrances down here. Also I brought some coffee upstairs just because some people say that smelling coffee is like a palate cleanser for your nose. This coffee's, like, over a year old, for sure. And after that, it's time for the whiff of truth. It's not bad. But it's hard to pinpoint, like, a name for what I'm smelling. I think berry, honestly. It is a little bit of a caramelly scent. I think it's like a sugared berry. Tyler: Okay. Saf: And that's my best guess. Tyler: You know what? Maybe it's stuck in my nostrils, but I'm smelling some of that blueberry. Somewhere, deep in there. Saf: So now that we've both smelled it cold, I think we've gotta light this sucker up. Okay. It smells really good when lit. Tyler: Oh yeah? Saf: I think it's still a berry smell, though. Tyler: Okay. Saf: I'm getting like a cozy, indoor, berry, cookie. Tyler: Maybe a pancake? Saf: It is possible... that the Blueberry Maple Pancake ended up on top. But even if that's true, the Franken-Body Works scent definitely has some layers to it that are hard to pin down. And I really wanna be able to convey those to you guys effectively. So I embarked on a smell quest to get more opinions on our candle to share with all of you. I'm gonna go up to strangers and ask them to smell my candle. Hahaha! This isn't creepy at all! Tyler: It does sound sexual Saf: It sounds like a euphemism for something. So right off the bat, we had people corroborating our guesses as to what the Frankencandle smelled like. - It's sweet, maybe something baked? Like a cupcake, maybe? Saf: Any undertones? Pretend you're a candle sommelier. - Maybe some fruity, like, raisin undertones? Saf: Raisin! With opinions like baked goods and fruit... Saf: As well as some holiday undertones. Saf: Cinnamon. Alright, fair. Anything else? But there was also a contingent of people who were picking up on undertones of the candle that I could not smell. Saf: Floral! A Bath & Body Works, totally. Saf: Okay. With a few votes for flowers... - Smells like, Saf: Lavender! That's our second lavender! I am totally missing the lavender here. So after getting some conflicting opinions out in public, We decided to go see Daniel Stone at Stone Candle Bar in Santa Monica, where they both produce and sell candles, as well as hold custom candle-making classes. Daniel, we did something weird. (Tyler and Safiya chuckling) Daniel: That's what I've heard And we were hoping he could give us an expert opinion. - Would you like me just to... Saf: Yeah, just...
- Put my two cents into this? Saf: Put your nose right in it. - Alright, so immediately it smells like a holiday scent. As holiday scents tend to be overpowering and kind of gormandises and rich. Now if you don't mind, I can get a little bit more out of this... if I rub the wax and let the notes kind of come out.
Saf: Sure, yeah. Saf: Swatch it. - Still. Really overpowering with that apple cinnamon type, cookie, vanilla scent. Now in an attempt to figure out exactly what the Franken-Body Works smelled like on our own, We had actually sniffed all our candles and picked out 11 that were kind of close. None of them were perfect, but if you hold Chestnut & Clove, Hot Cocoa, and the dreaded Blueberry Pancakes up to your face at the same time, I think you can kind of smell all of the layers of the Frankencandle. Yep, that's pretty good. So we've been trying to figure out, like, with our own devices what it smells like. - Yeah. Saf: And we came up with blueberry pancake... - Yeah, blueberry pancake. Totally. Saf: hot cocoa, and chestnut clove. - Chestnut. Chestnut is a great one in there. Saf: Alright, there we go. So it sounds like our little three candle combo was the way to go. - I'm sure you put other things in here. Saf: We did. (laughs) - I'm sure there was some ocean fragrances and some sandalwoods and a clean linen and all those wonderful things are just overpowered by the food fragrances. And so that's what you end up with. Alright. So... Expert opinion: it smells kind of like blueberries plus sort of a cinnamon-y, holiday undertone. - Walnut, chestnut, cocoa... Yeah. That should do it. Saf: Alright. So I think that is our best attempt at conveying the essence of the Franken-Body Works. Now what I will say is that I think the candle looks good and smells enjoyable, but like Daniel said, you can't really smell any of the non-sweet scents. So I'm not sure it really is the best of all seasons. It's more just like... Christmas. And I think that has to do with just how strong the food scents are. Because even though notes like mint, musk, eucalyptus, and sandalwood were very popular, I don't really smell them at all. Regardless, I am pretty pleased with our final candle. And I'm definitely gonna be burning it for a long, long time. And while I'm not sure I would recommend Frankencandle-ing, as I don't know if I'm gonna be doing it again, and it did give Tyler a prolonged headache, I am now pleased with the amount of candles I have to use in the coming months. I'd say we have pretty much a year's supply of candles right here. Saf: I mean, not if we burn it literally 24/7. Saf: Oh. (laughs) Thank you guys so much for watching our final video of 2018. Let us know in the comments below what you think we should name our Frankencandle. If you liked that video, make sure to sha-mash that like button and if you wanna see more videos like this, make sure to sha-mash that subscribe button. Here are my social media handles, and a big shoutout to Emma for watching. Thanks for watching, Emma. And I will see you guys a-next year!
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No sweater weather :/