Karen Davey English Country Garden

Karen Davey is a lovely lady based in Cornwall, who creates beautiful home furnishings. She launched her brand in 2011, focusing on creating beautiful bunting, but soon branched out to create other products including cushions, lampshades and most importantly, candles. The whole brand has the coastal theme in mind, which means that there are lots of nautical-inspired prints. I particularly love this Beach Hut Cushion. Because who doesn't love beach huts?


I had the opportunity to try out one of Karen's luxury soy candles, in the English Country Garden* scent. English Country Garden is a vibrant mix of damson plum, berry, cinnamon, jasmine, rose and patchouli. The result is a gorgeous perfume, so well blended that all the notes work in symphony with each other. The scent is luxurious, rich, sweet and sugary. The only thing I can think to liken it to is Viktor & Rolf's Flowerbomb, but a much fruitier version with the plum notes. I can imagine English County Garden being a go-to scent for many, especially lovers of sweet sugary scents, although personally I don't think the name fits the scent!

The candles are available in two sizes. The one I have is the small tin, which is £8.50 and burns for 12 hours, but there is also a larger glass jar for £15. Personally I think the jars are more aesthetically pleasing and would integrate better into the décor of a room. However I do think the small tins are great for trying different scents, or even to give as gifts.

All the Karen Davey candles are handmade using soy wax, and I have to say I was worried that I wouldn't get many burns out of the small tin as soy wax tends to melt really quickly. Thankfully this doesn't burn down quite as quickly as other soy wax candles. The wax still burns really evenly, and the scent is strong but not overpowering. 

There are so many other beautiful sounding scents in the range such as Rock Salt & Driftwood and Fairy Sparkles. I am also particularly intrigued about the two local scents, Cornish Moorland and Cornish Sea Mist. This is not a brand to be overlooked, especially in terms of quality of the fragrance blends.

I love the aesthetic of the whole Karen Davey brand. I like the way that it represents Great British heritage, and is brought bang up to date with a contemporary twist. All in all, it just makes me want to move to the coast and furnish my home floor to ceiling in all the beautiful patterns. Because there's no such thing as too many cushions...

What are you burning at the moment?

*Post contains PR samples