Brooklyn Flavors Candles Will Make Your Home Smell Like Fort Greene Park
If you’ve ever wanted to wake up to the smell of morning dew, falling leaves and windswept air, then Brooklyn Flavors‘ Fort Greene candle might be for you.
The 100 percent soy candle infused with citrusy fruits and mint gives off a “fresh, clean scent,” said creator Sophia Sylvester, who has been making Brooklyn-neighborhood-inspired candles for years, selling them first out of her Kensington home, then at the short-lived DeKalb Market, and now out of her own storefront at 820 Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights (which has a candle of its own — a soft floral blend of cherry, ylang, ylang and jasmine).
“I’m deeply in love with Brooklyn. The idea was that Brooklyn has so much flavor to it, such a mosaic of culture and colors,” Sylvester, who moved here from England at the age of nine, explained. “So we did demographic searches of the neighborhoods, past and present, and combined it.”
For Fort Greene, that meant trying to capture the essence of Fort Greene Park. For Clinton Hill, it meant “delv[ing] into the history of the wealthy people that lived there, so it’s fruity, but still something fresh and uplifting. There are magnificent mansions, so I wanted something uplifting.”
Candles are sold online and in-store in two sizes: four ounce travel tins for $8 and 12-ounce reusable glass jars for $22. The store also sells homemade bath bombs, body butter, sea salt scrubs, cleansing gel, lip balms, hair oil, and more.
Two new scents have also been added for the Valentine’s Day holiday: Be My Chocolate and Love In The Heights (whatever Heights neighborhood you want it to represent).
“I only use 100 percent soy candles so once you burn those, the smell is like aromatherapy and it’s going to whisk you away, can make you feel like you’re in the islands or outdoors or, with Canarsie Cookie, like you’re in a bakery baking,” Sylvester added. “They’re slow-burning candles, not made with paraffin wax, which is not healthy. They’re handmade, made in small batches to keep the quality high.”
Brooklyn Flavors is open at 820 Washington Avenue Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 7pm and on Sundays from 11am to 6pm.
