Ember - massage candle by Jimmyjane - review by Jul!a

Massage candles offer you the chance to set the mood for your massage with a little bit of mood lighting first. They are fantastic because even if you decide you don't want a massage, you can still use it as a regular candle. You could even use the wax as a moisturizer, either in its liquid or solid state, as the wax is still very soft.

These can be used by just about anybody, although it does help if you have a steadier hand while trying to pour the wax out.

The consistency of the solid wax really does depend greatly on the ambient temperature around the container. For instance, in our bedroom it's been at least 80-85 degrees, so the wax is really soft and looks like it's somewhere between melted and solid, but more on the solid side as knocking the container over accidentally has proven that it doesn't move right now. In a cooler area, the wax will be more solid, but you can still easily smoosh your finger in and dig a little bit out if you wanted.

In its liquid state it's, well, liquidy. It pours just like water, so if you don't have a steadier hand it's really easy to spill this everywhere and make a bit of a mess. Once it's poured onto the skin it'll flow downhill in any direction.

In both solid and liquid states, the wax does sink into the skin very nicely and doesn't leave behind a waxy or greasy residue, unless you accidentally poured too much, in which case, just wiping off the excess with a towel is sufficient.

Ember is available in a wide variety of scents on Eden, ranging from Lychee + lapsang, Truffle + gardenia, Saffron + neroli, Ginger + date, Honeysuckle + clover, and Honey + vetiver. JimmyJane's website
offers a few more scents in the mini sample embers that are also pretty neat: Coco + fig and Habanero + grapefruit.

I have the honeysuckle and clover in the full size Ember. I can't quite personally put my finger on the exact scents since I can't personally recall smelling honeysuckle or clover individually, but I can definitely catch a light floral scent that is very pleasant.

JimmyJane does offer descriptions of the scents, and if you click here and here, you can read them too.

If you don't light the candle, you'll have to get fairly close to it to smell it. Once you do light the candle however, the fragrance wafts lightly throughout the room. Light enough that if you stay in the room you won't notice it unless you get close to the candle again, but if you leave and come back in you'll be able to smell it.

I have actually tasted the wax, but that's because I learned the hard way the next day that giving a massage with this if you have longer nails will result in a buildup here and there of the wax under your nails. It tastes a lot like it smells like it would. Nothing I would want to ingest on a regular basis, but certainly nothing extremely unpleasant.

I'm not sure there's anything this wax can't do, short of maybe sprouting legs and delivering itself to my back.

The packaging says that you should let a pool of wax melt across the entire top of the candle's surface before extinguishing and then using for massage. I've found than in warmer rooms it takes about 20-25 minutes, where the packaging says it should take roughly 30.

When the wax goes on as a liquid it's as close to hot as you can get without being uncomfortable. Like the perfect shower temperature during the winter. It smoothes around just like an oil, and feels like one too. I was worried when I first used it that it was never going to soak into my fiancé’s back because I had accidentally poured too much on. But the almost dollar coin size I poured out (they recommend starting with a quarter sized) lasted for the whole half hour long rub down I gave him. The excess wiped off easily with a spare towel, and left him feeling soft and silky. When he used it on me, he was a little better at pouring than I was. He managed to pour just a bit larger than a quarter size and it lasted a good 20 minutes or so before I asked him to add more just because I liked the way the extra gliding felt.

The scent lingers on the skin well enough to be smelled if pressed against it for about a day or so. We used ours at night and the next night I could barely smell it on my skin.

If you do accidentally end up pouring too much, just go with it and wipe off any extra that you may have. You won't be left with a waxy residue, and any greasy feeling will go away shortly. However if you feel you must wash this off, a washcloth with some warm water and soap will take care of it.

JimmyJane's packaging is beautiful. Ember comes in a classy box black box that slides into a classy white box that's open on one side. The top of the white portion has JimmyJane's logo in the front, and the top of the box lists the scent, its description: for honeysuckle + clover it's "A drop of honeysuckle nectar falls into the young clover thriving below. This pair of aphrodisiac scents gets lucky under a warm blue sky." As well as the size and burn time, 12 ounces and 72 hours. I've burned mine a grand total of about an hour and a half and, aside from the black wick, you can hardly even tell that I've used it yet.

Ember itself is housed inside the little black box which is only open on the top. It comes with a ceramic lid for you to use to keep the dust and other particles out of your wax, and your massage. Also included in the little black box is a little instruction pamphlet that tells you how to safely use your massage candle. There's also a list of ingredients for 7 of the scents available, but mine wasn't on that list. However I can safely tell you that it's made from Jojoba, Shea Butter, Vitamin E, Soy, Aloe and other botanicals, and the wick is made from cotton.

As for discretion, unless somebody in your family happens to know what else JimmyJane sells, there's nothing risqué at all about this packaging, the box or the candle itself. Most of the jar is plain white with the logo being really tiny in the corner, and if you're worried about people seeing the logo on the lid while being left out, just flip it upside down.

Ember's wax can also double as a lotion basically and can be used in either its solid or liquid state. If you happen to be burning it for the scent and want to add some moisturizing to your hands, just carefully dip your finger into the wax pool until you have enough for your hands.

You'll want to make sure never to burn Ember, or any candle, on a surface that isn't stable, such as a bed. Keep it on a table or a nightstand or even the hardwood floor. Also, keep the flame away from anything that could catch on fire.

And another quick note, if you're not the best at pouring this out, the side of the container will end up with some wax drips down it. If you keep your candle in a cooler area, you can easily use a playing card or whatever to scrape off the excess wax and dump it back in the candle. If your candle happens to be in a warmer area, that wax will make the outside of your container very slippery and hard to handle if you're trying to pick it up. I've dropped it on the bed 5 times while writing this review. But if you happen to drop it on the floor, that ceramic jar might not hold up.

I'm so in love with my Ember candle. I even went out and bought the little sample pack and every single scent I've gotten of this candle has been awesome so far. My fiancé loves the candle because it isn't too girly for him, and I love the fact that whether or not we're burning it for massage, burning it to burn it, I've just gotten a massage, or I'm just bored and sitting near the candle I can keep inhaling the scent deeply. I also love that it doesn't leave either of us feeling waxy or greasy and the warm wax is definitely an enjoyable aspect to any massage. I can't wait to try this out when it's cold outside.