What’s Your Hometown?

I ordered the Illinois candle for a friend, and sadly I did not like it at all. The candle came in a cheap looking box with stickers askew. The wax itself was broken on the top of the candle when it arrived. Those things would be forgivable if it weren’t a gift. However, the candle didn’t actually smell very good. It reminded me of asphalt! I wanted to love this company after seeing it on Cup of Jo, but sadly, I have to return it and come up with a quick alternate birthday gift! Just thought I’d share my experience for other CoJ readers.

I’m from Kansas City! So, bbq scented?! Ha!

I love how California is divided – you better believe SoCal is different than NorCal!

My hometown is Traverse City, Michigan. I miss it terribly (I’m now in Nashville). I always think of the smell of fresh water and cherry orchards as well as farm stands with apricots, peaches, and plums. Also, the smell of the woods, which smells like pine trees, maples, and ferns. I love that they included “Indian summer” in the Michigan candle.
I can’t wait to go back up to TC for a week- I leave tomorrow! Yay!

I’m from NY and miss the city terribly. Before I even checked their site for my hometown candle, my first thought was OH NO what could a NYC scent possibly be?! Luckily they made it geared toward upstate farms with scents of apple and pumpkin. I miss the city but I do not miss the smells…Haha

I just sent one to my sister trying to convince her to move back to Chicago. Fingers crossed the scent of the burning candle lures her back home!

Love this! I’m from Bristol, England, which smelled like grass (both kinds), sea salt, and freshly rained on stone (most places have a bit of that in the U.K.!!). I now live in Beijing which smells, in the summer and where I live, of sichuan peppercorns, jasmine, and sandalwood incense.

I’m moving to Edinburgh soon (husband’s hometown) and I have two young ‘uns so been thinking about where the ideal place is – I’ve loved reading the comments! Oregon is coming out tops in the fragrance department for me! I’ve moved around a fair bit, in the U.K. and abroad, and don’t think anywhere is ideal. I wouldn’t choose to live in a suburb, we’re city folk, but I adore strong communties. We both work remotely and I love Asia but family pulls me back to Europe. We’re keen on Madrid or Barcelona but – Brexit. Sob. So we’re going to try soggy Scotland! Wet, yes, but Edinburgh is by far the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen.

I’ll never forget coming back to my home city Perth, Western Australia after a year away and stepping out of the airport to the strongest smell of Eucalyptus. I’ve only been able to smell it in the air after a prolonged time away. If they did Australian city candles, Perth would be a combination of Native Jasmine, sunshine(!) and of course, Eucalyptus.

Mine is Georgia, so that sweet tea and peach one would be just perfect for me! My hometown is in a tiny town called Newnan, GA. I definitely don’t miss it. It was very rural and super quiet. I’d want to raise children in somewhere more suburban, but not right in the middle of the city, probably right outside of it.

Keshia
http://www.queenlifeblog.com

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky and raised across the river in New Albany, IN. I was bored with it while growing up and now I miss it terribly.

I’m raising my children in Fort Worth, Texas, and while it is a remarkably enchanting place, I sometimes wish we lived in a place where they could experience 4 true seasons.

I grew up in California. I love going back to the Bay Area to visit, but I’ve always said I would never raise my own kids there. I think the Bay Area attracts smart, interesting adults, but the environment doesn’t produce very down to earth kids. I truly felt like I moved out of a bubble when I moved to the Midwest for college.
Nowadays, I’m based in Seattle. I’m torn because I love living in the middle of the bustling downtown, but I would want to feel ok letting my kids go outside to bike around the neighborhood alone (definitely not going to happen if we stay living a block from Pike Place Market). I don’t think I’d want to move to the suburbs, so that’s a tough problem to solve.
To be honest, I’ve always wanted to raise my kids in Dublin. My whole family lives in Ireland and I’d love to have them around my kids in some capacity. Growing up, my parents and I would spend at least a month every summer in Ireland and usually go back for the holidays as well. All my best childhood memories are there because I had tons of family around and the parenting style was just different- no helicopter parenting, all us kids would just head out in the morning and come back at night when we were tired…as it should be, I think. I’d like that for my own kids.

I live in my hometown – but it’s Arlington, Virginia (right next to DC), so it doesn’t really fit the small town narrative.
We moved back here at the beginning of the recession to get jobs (and have some security while looking) and then started having babies and never left. It’s a tough place to raise a family, but I can’t imagine moving my 2 boys away from their grandparents and my sister and her three little ones (similar ages). There are definitely good things about living so close to DC: plenty of jobs, lots of museums and events, and great restaurants and theater. The cost of living is insane though, but I think we’ll tough it out to stay near family.
I find a lot of people who grew up with me still live in the DC area – it’s funny because many people are surprised when I tell them that I grew up around here, but there’s lots of us! We’re just hiding in the crowd.

Also – I love all these different geographically specific candles! Even though Arlington only sometimes smells like honeysuckle and forest floor, I find that many of my travel memories include the olfactory memory of the place, so perhaps I can enjoy them on that level. Thanks for sharing!

I’m from a suburb on Minneapolis, but went to college in Portland, OR and currently live in Northern California. We’re hoping to move our family back to the Minneapolis area soon….so maybe I’ll get the Oregon one to remind me of college!

Well, I guess it wouldn’t sell very well, but I was surprised that SoCal doesn’t smell like hot asphalt and stinky pier. I grew up here in San Diego, and it just does not smell nice here! I don’t think people who dream of SoCal realize that it’s a giant suburban sprawl over the desert. Oh, gosh, this is coming out super negative! We’re still here because this is where our oldest friends are, and where our family is, and that makes any place great, but, still … I sure wish we could all move somewhere with a little rainfall, and seasons, kind people, and fewer billboards. Where are you, idyllic America? I want to find you!

My hometown is a farming community in NW Indiana. I haven’t lived there for about 12 years, but worked on farms when I was in middle and high school and the best smell is in late July (knee high by the 4th of July, they say), when you get to the cornfield for a days work and they have just been through cutting the rows for detasseling and the sun still hasn’t come up much and the dew still rests on the stalks. Either that, or I really love the smell of leaves burning in the fall when everyone was cleaning up their yards.

That said, the kettle corn, hay and denim for the Indiana candle is pretty accurate…although I don’t really know what denim smells like. Kettle corn and hay sounds delicious!