For the blissfully unfamiliar, Yankee Candles are a line of extremely scented candles normally contained in a jar and offered on quite a few giant retail websites, together with Amazon. It’s not shocking that the opinions of those candles would comprise some single-star responses, corresponding to this one from 2018: “Smelled Dangerous. Each my aunt and her caregiver remarked that every one three of the candles smelled ‘low-cost,’ they mentioned that ‘they scent like Lysol’ and so they’re paying homage to ‘greenback retailer high quality candles.’ Now my aunt is caught with three horrible smelling candles that she will not use.” The aunt in query had just lately had a colostomy, and the assessment finishes with: “I feel we are able to all agree that the scenario should be unhealthy if you happen to favor the scent of human waste to a product designed to freshen the air.”
That may be a unhealthy assessment. It’s additionally the second time that poop has made an look on this story.
However the latest opinions are considerably totally different. Somewhat than complaining concerning the overwhelming semi-medicinal scent of those candles, the latest one stars embody a number of that notice “no scent” or “didn’t give off a lot scent.”
In response, political science professor Nick Beauchamp took the dates of latest opinions that rated the candles poorly as a result of they lacked scent and positioned them on a graph.

If that chart appears vaguely acquainted, it may very well be due to a resemblance to this one.

Beauchamp additionally seemed on the knowledge one other method, producing this graph exhibiting the proportion of “no scent” opinions when in comparison with all opinions. This could assist get rid of spikes attributable to there merely being extra candle purchases across the holidays as folks search innocuous presents for relations they barely know.

That graph might seem to be a less than excellent match to the spikes in every day instances. Nonetheless, there’s additionally one other set of knowledge to check.

That appears … fairly outstanding. However keep in mind, solely about 40% of these with symptomatic COVID-19 report a lack of scent or style. Additionally, complaints about Yankee Candle not smelling sufficient are a trailing indicator. And presumably one of many few advantages of the illness.