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Primark is one of those places I tend to visit when I need to pick up affordable and basic items, such as leggings, kids t -shirts and underwear. In all honesty it’s not my go to place for the majority of my shopping needs, never has been. Well, until recently, when my daughter decided to develop an all consuming addiction to Harry Potter then multiple trips were needed (their HP range is impressive and cheap!). While stalking their home section for wizardry items, Primark’s home fragrance products caught my attention. Since I now enjoy reed diffusers, I thought I would give a couple a whirl. I opted for 2 scents Fresh Linen and Oriental Orchard. Both the 30ml size at a cost of 80p each!
Why did I buy these?
I thought I would go for these because the size and the price was a great way of trying them out to see what the quality was like. The scent selection was varied, with most being fragrances I like. If these minis performed well, I could easily buy the bigger versions as they were available too.
Packaging.
These are presented very well. Placed in long, thin cardboard boxes, each one has illustrations matching their scent on them e.g Oriental Orchid has images of flowers covering it. Both beautiful in look, both have a homely appeal to them and quite classic without being old fashioned.
The diffusers themselves, because of the size, are absolutely adorable! Made of glass and cylinder in shape, roughly 11cm in height and 3cm in depth. Both have the fragrance name on the bottles. Oriental Orchid is lettered in gold, which matches the gold coloured lid on the top of it. Fresh Linen is in silver with their lid a matching silver tone to. Simple but very sophisticated in appearance.
What do you get?
You get a bottle containing the fragranced oil, a pack of 5 reeds and an instruction leaflet.
Scent.
Fresh Linen. Think of a clean, crisp, laundry type scent. Slightly powdery in notes and a hidden floral in there and this is what you get! Not dissimilar to the type of scents you get in wax melt and candle forms in the laundry scent family of a similar name. Really lovely scent which most people will like.
Oriental Orchid. This one is a little more particular compared to Fresh Linen. This is obviously a floral. Floral, has a sweetness to it, but has an almost perfume style to how it smells. Doesn’t smell old fashioned. Very pretty and very pleasant in scent.
How to use.
On the bottle is a screw top lid you need to remove. Once it comes off their is a plastic stopper that you need to pull out which leaves the hole that you place the reeds in. Before you do that pop the top back on to finish and place the diffuser in your chosen place to enjoy the fragrance!
Strength & Longevity.
The only time I’ve noticed the scent of these is when I’ve placed them inside a cupboard (underneath the kitchen sink), and on a window sill in my children’s bedroom when the window was open. Other than that, scent strength wise has pretty much been non existent. In regards to longevity, you can’t have that if there is barely a scent at all! The packaging says these should last up to 4 weeks. By the end of a week most of the oil had evaporated, but got no scent as a benefit.
I’ve turned the reeds around to see if the scent would improve and for a split second it did in that moment when I was close by, but it wasn’t long lasting. The position of these have been moved and even the rooms they’ve been placed in changed. This hasn’t made a massive effect on the fragrance these give off. So overall disappointing.
Final thoughts?
I love the idea of these mini diffusers for so many reasons. They look cute, could make great little gifts or part of a bigger gift. But they still need to delivery fragrance, which I think means they have to be bigger. Or the oil stronger and possible tweaking of the reeds themselves e.g thickness, length etc.
Recommended?
No. For 80p a go it was worth a try but besides looking nice these were useless. Such a shame as the fragrances when you get a good whiff of them from the top of the bottle are really nice and appealing. But that’s it!I am curious though to try out the more standard in size versions, to see if size really does matter in the reed diffuser arena. As for these? I will give them a miss on my next Primark shopping trip.