"The scent of roses bursting through richly charred soil. Their lush petals strike a beautiful contrast against the deep, smoky earthiness of their environs, life, death, and rebirth all in one. Beauty in chiaroscuro, universal balance- an unforgettable scent." Doesn't that sound tempting? It's the Asphalte Rose candle from Mad et Len, and it's huge (300g) but also spendy ($105). At Luckyscent.
I love that description. But $100+ on a candle, even a 300g candle, just feels wrong. These days everything is calculated in college math–so that one candle equals a new set of dorm sheets, or books for a class, or 1/2 the airfare to bring my boy home for a holiday… Rose and charred soil (why charred?) you will have to wait.
It does feel wrong, but I bet is is less per gram than some other niche candles. Doesn’t matter, I am not going to buy it!
Also, yes, college math is hard, and more important than candles 🙂
I thought, “I could smell a rose and asphalt smell near tollbooths on the New Jersey Turnpike.” It’s been a while since I’ve been on there, but they had rosebushes planted around the tollbooths. All the carbon monoxide and other exhaust from the cars works very well against blackspot, so even the leaves look nice. Odds are that they’re the sort of perpetual-blooming rose that doesn’t have a scent, but I definitely don’t need a candle to get the smell of asphalt, and I already have dozens of rose-scented candles. 🙂
Ha!
This made me laugh. I’d bet that neyronrose is right, though… those landscape roses probably don’t have a lovely scent.
Well, considering that the driver is just going by, scent wouldn’t be as important as a nice mass of color. Landscape roses don’t tend to be scented as a group, although I’m sure there are a couple of exceptions.
I’ve seen a couple of mentions of rugosa roses lately. I’m not ambitious enough to page back through lots of comments, but I could write several paragraphs at least on those. I’ll try not to write that much.
The wild or wild-ish roses found helping to hold sand dunes together are the species or near the species. The dark pink is the original, I think. I like the ‘Alba’ version. The roses have a very nice clove scent and is a rebloomer. One can see roses and hips together on one rosebush.
Someone testing roses for fragrance — sorry I’m blanking out on who it is — mentioned a couple of rugosa hybrids as having really good fragrances. Yes, I’ve heard so, too, and smelled some rugosa hybrids that had lovely fragrances. A minus for a small garden is that some rugosa roses will grow 8′ tall and 6′ around. Also, most of them are thorny as heck, which a gardener will definitely notice at pruning time.
The Grootendorst(sp?) rugosa roses introduced by the Kordes family are scentless. Graham Stuart Thomas and/or members of the Harkness family had Opinions about that. The first introduced has scentless dull red flowers. Others were introduced that had different colors.
Rugosa rose flowers fade fast when cut, but most sorts have nice flowers to look at on a repeat-blooming bush. Just keep in mind estimations of the eventual height and breadth of that cultivar, and how thorny it is.
Have a good night!
Reminds me of an ice cream they had at my local ice cream shop recently – chamomile and charred strawberry. So summery, so lovely.