You smell a candle in the store and it is perfect. You get it home, light it, and it smells different. Not wrong. Just different. Here is what is actually happening.
The unlit smell is called cold throw. The burning smell is called hot throw. Cold throw is mostly the top notes: the bright, lighter parts of a fragrance that move easily at room temperature. Citrus, green notes, light florals. These are what you smell first because they are the most volatile. They do not need heat.
Hot throw is the whole picture. When the wax melts and the flame is going, heat pulls out the heavier parts of the fragrance: the base notes, the resins, the deeper warm elements that do not move on their own. A candle that smells like lemon and herbs unlit might open into cedar and amber after twenty minutes of burning. The lemon is still there. It just has more company now.
A well-made candle is layered. Different parts of the scent reveal themselves at different temperatures. What you smelled in the store was an introduction. What you smell burning is the rest of the conversation.
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