Every day after I finish up work (I work from home), I carry out what I call the Five o’Clock Tidy Up. This involves going from room to room in my apartment and, as you might have guessed, tidying things up.
There are housekeeping tasks that have to be undertaken on a daily basis—kitchen counters to wipe down, dishes to empty from the dishwasher, clothes to put away, etc.—and the Tidy Up is when I do a lot of that. To make the chores feel slightly less like drudgery, I play music and light a scented candle if I have one.
At the moment I have three, and lately I’ve been getting them all going at once as I tidy. Some might say I don’t have the square footage for that level of candle fragrance, but I don’t care, for I am a dangerous rebel reminiscent of a leather-clad Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Or, at the very least, Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy at the end of Grease.
Here are the three candles I currently light during the Five o’Clock Tidy Up:
Pure Maple Syrup / Sirop d’érable pur candle
- Housed in: a 540 mL tin can that I guess once contained syrup made in Quebec. The can has a quaint wintry scene printed on it.
- Acquired: by my husband, Frank, at a store selling red flannel and other Canadian bric-a-brac (Quebec-a-brac?), while we were on a road trip with my mother to commemorate her 70th birthday
- Smells like: maple syrup to a sickly sweet, borderline-abrasive degree
Custom Pet Memorial Candle
- Housed in: a 12-ounce shiny copper holder with a label that says “In Memory of Lucy” above a dog’s paw print
- Acquired: as a gift from my middle sister, following the death of my dog. According to the website of the makers, the item can memorialize a pet dog, cat, horse, or bird, so if you’ve lost a guinea pig the company evidently thinks you should shut up and get over it.
- Smells like: “natural botanicals, juniper, and cypress … infused with natural essential oils, including cedarwood, patchouli, cypress, geranium, and mint,” per the website. I detect some evergreen in there but also maybe some Estée Lauder?
Yankee Candle build-your-own Wax Works jar candle
- Housed in: the kind of clear glass jar with a lid you’ve seen a million times
- Acquired: at the Yankee Candle Village in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, which I was visiting in my capacity as a travel editor. For journalism, I was allowed to make my own candle by filling up a jar with these tiny little wax crystals that come out of big chutes along the wall when you press a button, sort of like at a frozen yogurt place. Then the jar was placed under a heat lamp to set, but I think maybe my candle was removed too early ‘cause the final result has a thin layer of dark green candle wax on top of what looks like bad sand art.
- Smells like: probably “Balsam Shimmer” or “Winter Beach Towel” or “Quiet Desperation” or some such, if Yankee Candle’s marketing people had their way
To be honest with you, I do worry about the effect of lit candles on the air quality in my home. Do you think I’m polluting the place and, by extension, my lungs with soot and whatever chemicals make a chunk of wax smell like oversweet syrup?
As always, I welcome any alarming statistics or we’re-all-gonna-die news articles on the subject, so please drop me a line if you have important information to share. Or, as Grease’s Sandy would say, “Tell me about it, stud.”
Indirect Objects 