For all of the love that Yankee Candle gets for its classics – the Clean Cotton, Midsummers Night, Sparkling Cinnamon heavyweights, for example – the brand does a good job of sprinkling in some out-of-left-field fragrance from time to time. Last year, something inspired them to release the Into the Garden collection, fragrances all inspired by – you guessed it – being in a garden. This collection included Emerald Herbs, Honey Bee Tea, and Garden Rain Shower, all harmless enough. But, that fourth one is the one I’m here to discuss today, because it definitely checks that out-of-left-field fragrance box. It is Sun Gold Tomato. Yes, a tomato candle. Yankee Candle made a candle that smells like tomato vine and tangy lime.
The official description from Yankee Candle’s website: “Your hard work in the garden pays off in abundance: scents of tangy lime, fresh herbs, and ripe golden tomatoes picked straight from the vine.“
My taste always gravitates towards the weird candles. If there’s a weird scent, I’m gonna sniff that joint. When they did a candle that smelled like bacon, I was there on Day 1. So, it should come as no surprise that my eye shifted toward Sun Gold Tomato when I saw the release of that Into the Garden Collection. I kept picking up the jar, sniffing it, and putting it back down for the first year or so it was out. Then, at the latest semi-anny, I noticed it was marked down by like 75%. It was tempting, but ultimately, in my never ending quest to save money wherever I can, I put it back on the shelf.
We got home that evening and I discovered that my mother-in-law had snuck Sun Gold Tomato (as well as Golden Honey) to the register and paid for them while I wasn’t looking. It was a birthday present, and finally, I had a Sun Gold Tomato of my own to hold.
What I like most about this candle is how it takes me back to my youth. I grew up as a kid venturing into my grandparents’s garden. My dad grew tomatoes out of buckets on the back porch some summers. There are few things that really feel like summer the way the smell of vine-ripened tomatoes does. Sun Gold Tomato does have a sweet and citrusy side to it – the lime is a prominent secondary note. But, it’s front-loaded enough with the pure smell of a tomato vine that I can deal with it. It’s a great candle that may not be for everyone, of course. But, for me, that scent of tomato vine hits my nose and it takes me back to the lush greens and sweltering heat of a middle Tennessee summer in the 1990s.
Check out the Yankee Candle archives here on SoBros Network for my extensive backlog of Yankee Candle reviews! Also, be sure to check out my comprehensive list of the top 100 Yankee Candle fragrances of all time. I worked on that thing for forever, so any read is appreciated, thank you. That is all.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, second on Football & Other F Words, analyst for Stacking The Inbox, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, the NFL Draft, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.
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