The Beauty Within

Is something that I really don’t know much about.  But when the weather starts to get cold, there’s nothing better than lighting up a candle and letting the scent fill your room.  I’m a super floral/citrus person, so even during winter I’ll light up a grapefruit scented candle.

During my recent trip to Newport Beach, the hub and I ended up in Balboa Island, which is the cutest place ever.  There’s this little tiny bridge that’s approximately 25 feet long connecting the man-made island to mainland, but once you cross that bridge, you don’t even fill like your in SoCal anymore.  Balboa Island looks like a small quaint town that you see on TV, ala Gilmore Girls. Since I became obsessed with GG, I’ve been obsessed of finding a small little town to settle in when I’m old.

On the island, there’s one main street called Marine Street, and it’s filled with small mom and pop shops and restaurants.  There is one Starbucks, but all the other cute ice cream shops made up for it.  Since I was there on my Mom’s birthday, I decided I’ll look for something that she’ll appreciate.  She has a lot of stuff, and half of the time I’m not sure if she likes them.  Last year I gave her and my mom this African stone sculpture, and it just sat underneath a pile of paper for the longest time.  It was a gorgeous sculpture too, but that’s how she is.

Luckily, I passed by a candle store, and for some reason, candles and soaps are able to capture my attention almost as easily as pretty make up.  The store, CandlEssence was very quaint, with extremely friendly people behind the counter.  They had tons of different scents, and none of them were too nauseating.  You know how some sometimes when you walk by scented candles, you just gag from the overwhelming scent?  That didn’t happen here, even though the stores makes their own candles right on site.

All the candles were gorgeous, with this fiery pattern on it.  There were many different sizes to choose from, and also a hexagon shape on top of the traditional round columns.  I ended up getting a Lavender candle for my mom, and a Freesia one for myself.  The Lavender one smelled heavenly, while the Freesia has a very soft and sweet scent to it.  It just makes the room smell a bit sweeter, so it doesn’t distract me from say.. sleeping.

The store also sold cards with pictures painted by one of the lady’s behind the counter, so I got one as well since my mom likes paintings.  She has ones featuring flowers, boats (since Balboa Island has a lot of boats surrounding it), and other pretty landscapes.

The entire store was wonderful, and you can feel that the owners really put their heart and happiness into creating their candles and opening up the store.  If you’re not around this area, they do have an online store where you can purchase their candles: http://www.cecandles.com/

K.. enough of my ramblings.. I gotta get home to do the laundry.  =D