Bath & Body Works Candles Versus ALDI Candles: Who Wins?
Ah, Bath & Body Works! I’m sure you’ve heard people rave about their amazing candles. But after scooping up the best deal on a candle I could find, I wanted to know if they’re really worth the splurge, or if our favorite discount retail grocery store ALDI might have a surprise in store for us. Here’s what I discovered!
1. The scent options
For this onlineparison, I needed the best of the best – which I’ve heard is, hands-down, the Bath & Body Works 3-wick candle. There were so many options, I wasn’t even sure where to start. Then, I bought a candle from ALDI because people tend to rave about how cheap (and amazing) they are. Though the selection is much more limited, I looked for similar scents, color, and overall appearance. In the end, I came home with the White Barn Linen & Lavender from Bath & Body Works and the Signature Huntington Home Cranberry Dahlia from ALDI.
🏆 Scent Options winner: Bath & Body Works
2. The price onlineparison
At Aldi, I grabbed the large gold candle for $7.99 and a Huntington Home candle in their Cranberry Dahlia scent for just $4.99. I have to say, I’ve never scooped up such a great-smelling candle for such an amazing price!
Hip Tip: You can also check your local store for ALDI’s Huntington Home 3-Wick Candles for just $3.99 and if you’re lucky enough you can scoop up their Lavender scent just like my Bath and Body Works one!
onlinee to find out, Bath & Body Works typically only have cranberry scents around Christmas time, so I picked out the closest scent I could find for my ALDI onlineparison. Linen and Lavender it is! They both had floral scents, so I felt that this was my best bet for an honest onlineparison of the two brands. Plus, I scooped up the Bath & Body Works Butterscotch Toffee since it was on sale, smelled so good, and I loved the glass container!
If you’ve shopped at either ALDI or Bath & Body Works before, you probably have a good idea of what the price difference is going to be for candles. I was lucky enough to scoop up my B&BW candle on sale, but normally they charge $24.50 for each 3-wick candle. I could buy up to five ALDI candles for that price! Talk about a huge price difference!
🏆 Price winner: ALDI
3. The ultimate burn test
The burn test between these two candle brands will show how quickly the wax melts at 10 minutes, at one hour, and at two hours. If a candle burns too quickly, you could be out of those intoxicating scents and that flickering light faster than you know it (and who has money to burn?). Here’s what I discovered.
After 10 minutes.
As you can see, my Bath & Body Works candle (left) started burning much quicker in the first ten minutes. To keep things fair, I only lit one wick on my Bath & Body Works candle since my ALDI candle only had one.
After 1 hour.
I blew the candles out after an hour to evaluate how much melted wax there was for each one. The ruler test speaks for itself! Not only is the diameter of the melted part larger on the Bath & Body Works candle (left) but I can only imagine how quickly this candle would deplete if all 3 wicks were burning! 😱
After another hour with all 3 wicks burning.
I had to test this out for myself! After burning all 3 wicks for an hour, the melted wax measured past the metal part of the eraser on a standard number 2 pencil. This makes me wonder: are the guaranteed Bath & Body Works truly tested?
🏆 Burn test winner: ALDI
4. How did they smell?
Alright, so I know not everyone cares about how fast candles burn. What matters most is how good these candles smell. Personally, I thought both of the candles smelled so good when I picked them out in the store. I don’t like candles that are too overpowering, and I didn’t feel that either scent was “too much“. Of course, Bath & Body Works has an endless amount of options, whereas ALDI only has a few, but I was able to find one I really liked at both stores.
When testing these out at home, I made sure to put them in separate areas of the house so that I could get a good idea of what they smelled like after burning and also how their scent fills a space.
After walking into my office where I had my ALDI candle burning, I noticed the scent, but it wasn’t overpowering the room. Plus, I was really impressed with how slow the wax was melting. Simultaneously, I placed my burning Bath & Body Works candle on my nightstand while I worked from my bed, and after about 10 minutes, I noticed the scent right away. I moved it over to my dresser on the other side of my room. While I was shocked at how quickly it was burning, I also could barely stand to have it lit for the entire hour because the smell was so strong and started to give me a headache.
🏆 Scent winner: ALDI
5. So what’s my verdict on the candles?
Is Bath & Body Works worth the splurge? After burning each candle for an hour, I came to a conclusion on which one I would spend money on in the future.
My overall verdict:
Given the price difference, scents, and burning time, I don’t think I would ever splurge on a Bath & Body Works candle unless I was looking for a very specific scent, which in that case, I can almost guarantee Bath & Body Works would have it. With that said, the ALDI candle wins it all for me!