Votivo back in stock at Pomegranate - for a short time

For fans of Votivo candles, just want to let you know that they are back in stock at Pomegranate, and better than ever. Good news: they've reformulated waxes and wicks to be clean-burning. They used to smoke a little bit, and I never liked that part, even though their scents are wonderful (especially Red Currant, a perennial favorite). There are a few new scents, and some new glass and packaging options that are especially nice for holiday (coming up sooner than you think!) gift-giving. Oh, and we also have their new scent diffusion sets, for those of you who prefer that over a candle.

And Votivo made some behind-the-scenes changes too. Now they're using packaging material that is completely recyclable and easy to manage; another reason for our decision to bring their products back in. We stress out over this quite a bit, dealing with mountains of boxes and packaging materials. Poor Robert normally spends most of his day off (if he gets one) breaking down boxes and rebagging that hideous popcorn (aka ghost turds) that so many manufacturers use to pack the goods that go to stores (why we sometimes call him Popcorn Bob). Most of that stuff cannot be recycled except to pass it on and reuse it. I don't know what other stores do with it all, but we've found a couple of companies that take it off our hands and use it again to pack their own products. So we're happy when a vendor goes to the trouble and expense to use packing materials that the recycling centers will accept. It's something you don't even think about when buying an item, but it's a giant issue for us retailers.

Anyway, we like the new Votivo, and surprisingly, they've been able to maintain their pricing from the last few years. The bad news: what we have is all you get. It's unlikely that we'll reorder before the holidays, given the bazillion other things we have on order and somehow have to pay for. Soon.

P.S. and FYI: those fall platters and plates shown in one of the pictures? They're stinkin' cute, made of Melamine, and are amazingly inexpensive (platter @ $28; square plates are $4.95). The small plates I think are great for appetizers or presenting a gift of baked goods. But there aren't very many left (going fast already), and we can't get them again. On candles: the trick to keeping a candle burning evenly and long is thus: trim the wicks to 1/4" (otherwise they flame up and burn more vertically), and never burn a candle for more than a few hours (again, it will just start burning vertically around the wick, rather than evenly across the surface). And for god's sake, don't leave a candle burning in your powder room for a party. Just get one of those fakey, battery-operated candles. They look good and are safe.