Fragrances in candles have developed quite a bit over the past few decades. In the late 80’s and early 90’s fragrance choices were primarily dedicated to florals. There are so many different types of flowers each with their own specific character. Because of this diversity, it was easy to find something to please the majority of shoppers.
Manufacturers of fragrance along with promoters and marketers decided that a change might stimulate more interest and sales. It was partly this development along with the introduction of a glass jar container candle that stimulated a boom in the candle industry. The fragrance innovations first started with the introduction of Berry and Fruit selections in the early 90’s. Soon after, Perfumes became the next target. This reawakening created a spark that soon ignited the explosion which had quite an impact in the candle industry. This response stimulated more development and soon fragrance blends hit the market. These blends, at start, were primarily the addition of vanilla to the popular fruit and berry characters which introduced new fragrances like peaches and cream, sugary strawberry, berries and cream, etc. Vanilla was soon added to other base fragrances like cinnamon and apples. This innovation started one of the most popular revolutions to the candle industry by the mid 90’s. These Cookie, Pumpkin Pie, Baked Apple Crisp, Cinnamon Bun, 
and Blueberry Muffin introductions stimulated the most popular breakthrough in the industry and has become the most predominant category of selection for the Fall through Christmas season. No other category has had such an impact and has lasted longer, and is still one of the hottest fragrance families.
Candle sales continued to increase and this impetus stimulated even more clever creations by the turn of the century. The craze of blends brought about all kinds of new and unusual combinations. As if this wasn’t enough, creative minds decided that new and appealing names needed to be associated with their creations. This brought about a new phase with fragrances like Ocean Breeze, Fresh Rain, Clean Linen, Mountain Air, and other clever names to influence purchases. The only difficulty with these nondescript names was that they gave no indication of what the fragrance smells like unless it was a hands on purchase. Not to be discouraged, the perfumers and blenders continued to embellish their creations, but added more descriptive names which happened around 2005 to 2007. This phase introduced fragrances like Apples and Brown Sugar, Coconut Mango Splash, Maple Sticky Buns, Oatmeal & Honey, among other mouth watering varieties. Then to further enhance the multitude of possibilities, other aromatic and exotic plants, fruits and flowers brought us to some of today’s innovations like Pink Hibiscus, Moss & Mandarin, Hawaiian Garden, and Pear Mango Smoothie among others. Where do we go from here? Only the demand for something new and the exciting and creative spirit of some of the best perfumers in the industry will determine that.
