Plenty of people bring Gilt Pomander & Hinoki home for the jar. The large size comes in gold mercury glass with a starburst pressed into it and a matching glass lid, and one candle YouTuber admits that shade of gold is what finally got her to buy it, after viewers had spent a couple of years telling her to try it. At some retailers it sells out after the big holiday sales.
The name promises a clove-studded orange, but that isn't what most people describe. The YouTuber found barely any pomander; what she smelled was the hinoki, a fresh, oddly sweet wood she couldn't compare to anything, with cardamom and a little holly berry around it. A beauty blogger got cranberry, apple, cinnamon and evergreen, a much better take on Bath & Body Works' Leaves, and another reviewer calls it a well-blended, cozy winter living-room scent rather than anything niche. On Reddit it's one person's desert-island candle, another's ideal party candle (pleasant in the background, never grabbing for attention), and a third says it smells like an upscale store at Christmas.
Throw, depending on who you ask
Here the accounts split almost comically. Some Reddit owners report amazing throw, the scent drifting through an apartment in no time; the blogger says even the little 4 oz tin packs a punch, and a YouTube viewer finds her gold jar throws better than most Voluspas. Yet the YouTuber who bought it for the gold glass rated her large jar about a two in her open-plan rooms and a five or six in the downstairs powder room, where she thinks it's lovely for guests during holiday hosting. Space seems to decide it: apartments and small rooms do fine, big rooms with high ceilings don't. A commenter who has burned Voluspa's 3-wick tins for years says she has never had a throw problem with them, and the hearths give you the gold glass and more wicks at once.
Prices run from $32 for a tin with three wicks to $40 for the Large Jar and $90 for the mid-size hearth. It also turns up among the minis in Voluspa's advent calendar, and one Reddit collector's cold-weather lineup sets it beside Lafco's Spiced Pomander and Diptyque's Pomander, which is fair company for a spiced holiday candle.
