This researcher correlated negative reviews of scented candles with COVID-19 cases
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This researcher correlated negative reviews of scented candles with COVID-19 cases

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Inspired by this tweet, researcher Kate Petrova did a deep dive of scented candle reviews before and after the pandemic. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, reviews of scented candles took a deep drop after the pandemic started with numerous complaints that the candles lacked any scent. One of the symptoms of COVID-19 is losing your sense of smell and taste so, ya know, put two and two together.

First, I downloaded a random subsample of US-based customer reviews of the 3 most popular scented candles on Amazon. Between January 2017 and January 2020, the average rating stayed around 4.3/5, but there was a sharp drop between January and November 2020. 2/n pic.twitter.com/kpCRZ1StKZ

— Kate Petrova (@kate_ptrv) November 27, 2020

Since the beginning of 2020, customer satisfaction with scented candles has been dropping at a much faster rate compared to unscented candles. 4/n pic.twitter.com/LULlUh9P6W

— Kate Petrova (@kate_ptrv) November 27, 2020

You can view the complete Twitter thread here. Personally, I’ve noticed my candles have also started losing their flavor. Not sure what gives, but they taste terrible now.

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