I am a self-confessed ‘candle connaiseur’. < What a ridiculous title, Laura shut your face & stop referring to yourself in the third person. But in all (slight) serious-ness, candles really are one of *my things* ; a unhealthy obsession, a catalyst for me to quite literally burn my money, an unecessary-necessary and my home is never without some kind of smelly burning glass of JOY. On last count I had 23 of the damn things either dotted around in various rooms.
My name is Laura and I am a candle-addict.
Why do I like candles? I simply find the right kind of scent really relaxing & comforting, it looks lovely plus the constant burn of them gives out a constant, slow-emitting fragrance that you cannot get with room sprays. Most evenings, I will have a candlelit bath : there is something quite charming about the dull, flickering, crackling flames and rawness of having no artificial light.
I do buy the odd budget candle but most *tend* to slip into the luxury bracket : They will often use a better quality of wax plus a higher % of fragrance oil in fancy candles thus making them stronger to smell & slower to burn. ‘Laura if you spend £40 on a fancy candle it’s BETTER value than buying x4 from the supermarket because the smell will be stronger so you don’t have to burn it as much!’ << What I tell myself most times I’m toying with the idea of another candle.
The Current Go-To’s.
Not as fancy-looking perhaps as some of the luxury candles but one of the most niche, interesting and amazing combination of smells come from Malin + Goetz. I actually find they burn better than the majority of Diptyque, and if you are *into* candles then you need to try a M+G one. My scent go-to’s are the Cannabis & Dark Rum.
Jo Malone > Possibly the most infamous /common luxury candle brand that we all know. I really like the ‘Intense’ range which are the slightly stronger candles and come in the all-black jar with the OUD & Bergamot being my go-to from Jo Malone.
Diptyque ; Ahhh the infamous ‘blogger’ candle as I now like to refer to it. Favourites include Amber & Vanilla and I am currently obsessing over the Christmas ’16 scent ‘Encens Etoile’ which I managed to get a couple of before they sold out. (gotta have back up, right?!) Slightly-very cliche now but I still love ’em after 10 years of burning.
A more ‘natural’ candle that also happen to look down right SEXY is from Australian-based brand Cocolux. I had never heard of these before I spotted them in Selfridges when I was not candle shopping one day. The wax is coconut oil based and it’s simply a cleaner and more sustainable candle. PLUS imagine how many pretty brush holders you could have after burning a couple of these.
The new thang = Byredo. Argggggh the love-hate I have with Byredo. LOVE the fact that these candles are SO strong when you burn them, look incredible AND the Bibliotheque scent is stuff that nasal-orgasms are made of (yes, it’s a thing) BUT I did not love when I opened mine and the label was are bubbly and fuc*ed up – read my rant here. It is still up there in my favourites though because it burns SO will and smells unreal. The scent ‘SAFRAN’ is next on my Byredo hitlist and I have been talking myself out of buying this for 1 month now but it’s only a matter of time.
I could have gone on. And on. and maybe one. But it would have gotten a bit dull and there is only so much you can ramble on about fragranced wax in a jar.
Ooooooo and you MUST always recycle your posh candle jars, I did a lil’ how-to on this ages ago > Read here.
What are your favourite candles & scents? Do you invest in the more expensive ones or do you prefer a budget candle?
