Take the nutmeg out of eggnog and what is left smells a lot like a melted vanilla milkshake. Milk and sugar are soft, sweet smells that blur together. The nutmeg grated over the top is the warm, sharp note your nose files under Christmas.
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That one spice matters if someone on your Christmas list is the eggnog person. She buys the first carton the week it shows up at the store, and she has dropped a hint that a marshmallow eggnog candle would be a nice gift this year. You want to hand her something that smells like the whole cup, spice and cream together, which is why every pick in this guide comes from our hand-poured pure beeswax candles, each one matched to a person and a room.
The marshmallow eggnog jar she probably already owns
The obvious move is the big holiday jar from the mall. Yankee Candle and Bath & Body Works both bring out marshmallow and eggnog scents around the holidays, and their glass tumblers fill the front tables by November.
The trouble with that gift is simple. The eggnog lover on your list has walked past those tables too, and there is a good chance one of those jars is already on her shelf. A gift she could have grabbed on her own lunch break does not feel like you thought about her.
Buyers of sweet holiday candles also tend to report the same few letdowns. The jar smells strange on a cold sniff. Once it is lit, the scent drifts toward plain frosting or caramel, and the eggnog part goes missing. Some single-wick jars burn a deep tunnel down the middle and leave a wall of wax on the sides.
Each of those problems traces back to how the scent was built and what wax is carrying it. So before you pick a candle, it helps to know what a marshmallow eggnog smell is actually made of.
What your nose is looking for in an eggnog scent
Think of the drink in two layers. The bottom layer is cream: milk, sugar, egg yolk and a little vanilla. It is rich and soft, and on its own it smells like custard.
The top layer is spice. Nutmeg leads, and many recipes add cinnamon or a pinch of clove. These spices are warm and a little sharp, and they give the sweetness an edge to hold onto.
Marshmallow adds to the cream side. A marshmallow is mostly whipped sugar and vanilla, so in a candle it pushes the scent sweeter and fluffier. That is lovely, up to a point. When a fragrance leans only on sugar and vanilla, it smells like a bakery case in general, and your brain stops reading it as eggnog.
So the scent she is hoping for needs both layers to show up. The creamy, sweet side makes it cozy. The spice side makes it Christmas. Next comes the part most people never think about, which is the wax that has to carry both layers for weeks.
The wax that carries those notes through all of December
Most mall candles are poured with paraffin, either alone or blended with a plant wax. Paraffin starts as crude oil. Refineries pull fuels out of it first, and the waxy leftover is cleaned up and sold to candle makers. That is why paraffin is a petroleum byproduct, and why it tends to leave black soot on the jar rim as it burns.
Beeswax comes from a hive. Bees make it to build their comb, and beekeepers collect it as a byproduct of honey. People have burned it as candle wax for thousands of years, back to around 5,000 BCE.
Beeswax also has the highest melting point of any candle wax. A higher melting point means the wax melts more slowly, so the candle lasts longer at the same size. Our 12 oz candle burns for more than 80 hours, which is enough for a nightly glow from early December through New Year's Day.
Two more details matter for a Christmas gift. Beeswax gives off a light closer to natural sunlight, so the flame looks warm and golden on a dark winter evening. And every MBur candle uses a wooden wick, which crackles softly as it burns, a lot like a small fire in the next room.
Now you know the two things the right candle needs: a scent with both layers of eggnog, and a wax that burns long and slow. That brings us to the actual picks.
The two halves of eggnog, poured as two candles
We should be plain with you here. MBur does not make a candle called marshmallow eggnog, and none of our candles lists a marshmallow note. What our line does have is the two halves of the drink, each poured on its own in 100% beeswax.
One candle carries the spice: nutmeg, cinnamon and clove over vanilla. The other carries the cream: vanilla, almond milk and tonka bean. If you know which half of eggnog your person loves most, you already know which candle to buy.
Both use phthalate-free fragrance and contain no chemical dye. Both are hand poured in New York City. The only real decision left is the scent and the size, and the right size depends on the room she will burn it in.
Gift picks by who is on your list
For the eggnog purist who wants the nutmeg: People Watching
Picture your sister on the second Saturday of December. The tree is up, the lights are on a timer, and she is on the couch with a mug, a blanket and a holiday movie she has seen twenty times. She wants the room to smell the way the top of her eggnog smells.
That is the moment for our People Watching beeswax candle. Its notes are Lemon, Orange, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg, Allspice and Ginger. The spice side of eggnog is all there, with vanilla underneath to soften it and a bright bit of citrus peel on top.
When it burns, it smells like a spice cake just out of the oven, with a warm glaze going soft over the crumb. That is the custard-and-nutmeg warmth eggnog lovers wait all year for.
For her, choose the 12 oz size, the 80-hour candle with two wooden wicks, at $65. This is the candle she will light most nights of the holiday season in the main room of her home. Two wicks spread the melt across the whole surface of the wax, so the scent reaches the far corners of the living room.
"I love this candle. I burn it everyday and my whole place smells AMAZING."
Jessica H., People Watching customer
For the one who loves the marshmallow half: Room Service
Your best friend is the one who orders the drink with extra whipped cream and drops a marshmallow on top of her hot cocoa. She lives in a city studio, and her bedroom corner doubles as her reading nook on winter nights.
For her, pick our Room Service beeswax candle, the number one bestseller in our line. Its notes are Saffron, White Tea, Purple Peonies, Orchid, Tobacco, Vanilla, Almond Milk and Tonka Bean. Almond milk and vanilla bring the creamy, milky sweetness. Tonka bean adds a warm, toasted sweetness that sits close to the smell of a marshmallow browned over a flame.
The white tea and saffron keep it from going sugary. It smells like the lobby of a good hotel on a winter night, soft and warm and a little dressed up.
Choose the 5 oz size, the 40-hour candle with one wooden wick, at $32. In a studio or bedroom, one wick fills the space without crowding it, and 40 hours of slow beeswax burn carries her through the holidays. One customer was not sure about Room Service until she lit it:
"Once I lit it, however, I fell in love!"
Breann B., Room Service customer
For the host who wants the whole cup: give both
Some people on your list throw the Christmas party every year. The kitchen is full of cookies, the living room is full of guests, and someone always brings a punch bowl of eggnog.
For this person, give both candles and tell her where each one goes. People Watching sits in the kitchen by the cookie trays, where the spice matches the baking. Room Service goes in the living room or entry, since it is the scent people pick for a room where they host. As guests move between the two, the house smells like the whole cup: the cream in one room and the nutmeg in the other.
But she asked for marshmallow eggnog by name
That is a fair worry. She used those two words because they describe a feeling, sweet and creamy and warm, with the smell of Christmas spice around it. Ask yourself which part she talks about. If she mentions nutmeg, spice cake or the way her grandmother made eggnog, give her People Watching. If she mentions whipped cream, marshmallows or anything vanilla, give her Room Service.
Maybe her place has a big open kitchen and living area. In that case, go with the 12 oz size of whichever scent fits her, because two wooden wicks melt a wider pool of wax and push the scent farther into a large room.
Maybe she already has a drawer full of candles. That is the best case for a beeswax gift, since she likely has nothing that burns this slowly or crackles like a wooden wick. A drawer full of mall jars makes a pure beeswax candle stand out more, and she will notice the difference the first night she lights it.
How to present it so it feels like Christmas morning
A candle gift lands best when the wrapping hints at the scent before she opens it. Wrap the box in plain brown paper and tie it with red twine. Tuck a whole nutmeg or a cinnamon stick under the knot, and the package smells like eggnog before the paper comes off.
For the eggnog purist, set the candle in a small basket next to a quart of her favorite eggnog and a tiny nutmeg grater. For the marshmallow lover, add a bag of good marshmallows and a mug. The candle stays the main gift, and the extras tell her you were paying attention.
Our candles arrive carefully wrapped, and customers notice. One wrote about a Room Service order:
"I love these candles... I love the package and how carefully everything was wrapped. Im saving the wrapping paper to utilize during the xmas holiday."
Jason H., Room Service customer
Last, write one line of care on the gift card. Tell her to let the first burn run until the melted wax reaches the edge of the jar, which usually takes 2 to 3 hours. That first full melt sets the pattern for every burn after it, so the candle burns evenly to the bottom and she gets every hour of it.
Questions gift buyers ask
Do you make a candle that smells exactly like marshmallow eggnog?
No candle in our line is called marshmallow eggnog, and none lists a marshmallow note. We split the drink into its two halves instead. People Watching carries the nutmeg, cinnamon and clove side, and Room Service carries the vanilla and almond milk side.
How long will the candle last her through the holidays?
The 5 oz size burns for 40 hours and the 12 oz size burns for more than 80 hours. Beeswax has the highest melting point of any candle wax, so it melts slowly. An evening or two a week on the larger size carries her well past New Year's, and you can see both sizes on our pure beeswax candle collection page.
Which one works best in a small apartment?
For a studio or bedroom, the 5 oz size with one wooden wick fills the space without crowding it. Room Service is a good fit there if she loves the creamy, sweet side of eggnog.
Will she be able to smell it across a big living room?
Choose the 12 oz size for a large or open room. Its two wooden wicks melt a wide pool of wax, and a wider pool sends more scent into the air. The 12 oz People Watching is the one we pick for a big holiday living room.
The candle to put under her tree
A good marshmallow eggnog candle has to smell like the whole drink, and the part most holiday jars lose is the nutmeg. The gift that gets it right carries the spice and the cream in a wax that burns slow and clean enough to last the season.
For the eggnog lover on your list, give her People Watching in the 12 oz size. It is the candle she will light on the couch every night of December, with the tree lit and a mug in her hand, and the room will smell like the top of her eggnog. The logic matches the feeling: Cinnamon, Clove and Nutmeg over Vanilla, two wooden wicks, and more than 80 hours of 100% beeswax.
Customers who start with a candle from our line often say the same thing afterward:
"I loved it! Would definitely order a bigger size next time"
Cassie D., People Watching customer
Order it this week, because a gift that arrives early gives you time to wrap it with the nutmeg and twine before Christmas.
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