Panjore Lychee has been around since 2009, when it arrived as a pink-waxed spring and summer scent, and in that time it has picked up two reputations that don't quite fit together. On one side are the devotees. On Reddit it is somebody's favorite candle of all time, somebody else's gateway into pricier candles, and the one scent a candle-averse husband actually likes. Nordstrom reviewers call it bright and juicy without being too sweet, and one says it never misses as a gift.
On the other side are people who can't smell it. One Reddit buyer says their jar has no throw unless their nose is practically in the wax, so it gets lit for the glow alone. Another got next to nothing from a jumbo jar while a tiny sample of a different scent filled their studio, and a third had a 3-wick tin that stayed silent while a small jar of Goji did better. One YouTube reviewer titled a video about it as their first "meh."
Why the stories don't match
Part of it is the scent. Lychee, juicy Asian pear and cassis make a light, fresh fruit with only a dusting of floral, and the owners of a candle shop that reviewed it at launch called it softer than its sibling, fruity but not sweet, with a hint of rhubarb. A home-fragrance YouTuber put the throw at a 6.5 to 7 in a closed room and suggested a bedroom, office or powder room, or two candles for a living room. Part of it is size: one commenter smelled nothing from a small jar, while a college roommate's big multi-wick of the same scent perfumed their entire apartment. And part of it is the jar-to-jar wobble people describe across Voluspa, where two candles of one scent can behave differently.
Its Glow Score is a strong 9.0, built on 62 Amazon reviews averaging 4.5 stars, so those who get along with it clearly do. For a bedroom or office, the 9 oz Classic ($34, about 60 hours by Voluspa's count) is the natural fit; the $16 mini tin is the low-stakes test, and the 3-wick and 5-wick hearths ($90 and $250) are the better bet for open rooms.
One TikToker who worked through an entire Voluspa advent calendar found perhaps the smartest use for a soft fruit candle: a small bathroom, with Sparkling Cuvée and Goji Tarocco Orange burning alongside it for a bright, fizzy fruit mix.
Updated Oct 21, 2026
