Remembering Erin's Grandmother with Ouida's Garden Candle
This summer, Erin is introducing Ouida's Garden in her new candle collection. While the smell is delightful, the memory behind its aroma will give you the urge find a porch, pour a glass a sweet tea, and it might even bring tears to your eyes. If you're new around here, each scent is based on one of Erin's "scent memories." (Yes, scent memories are a thing!) Yet one thing stronger than Erin's love for curating scents is the memories that inform them, especially the memories of her beloved grandmother, Ouida Walters Rasberry.
In the eyes of her family and community, Ouida was a master gardener. Erin remembers Ouida's prized possessions were the heirloom tea roses and four o-clocks that wrapped her screened-in back porch. This scent was so much a part of their summer visits that Erin spent two years fine-tuning this scent to replicate it and go there again.
Erin says, "My grandmother's back porch was screened in on three sides, and she had four, white rocking chairs that Mallory and Jim now have at their house. Anytime someone came over to visit, she was sitting in her chair (which was at the end.) We all sat with her, and she would give everyone a glass of tea. That sounds so cliche, but that was the only place I ever drank tea in my life was on her back porch."
She continues, "We would rock and we would talk and tell her about our day and this is what it smelled like. She had these heirloom tea roses that grew all the way around the screen porch. The four clocks at four o'clock would bloom in the afternoon, and it's this sweet, sweet smell. It's a little different than any other flower I've ever smelled, so I tried so hard to capture that in a candle. When I smell it, I'm on her back porch."
"I think she would love this candle. She never burned a candle, but if I gave her this one she would have loved it. It even has her name on it."
View the Ouida's Garden Collection
P.S.—Ouida's Garden is available in Room Spray and Hand Soap!
