Best Scented Candles: Five Families Worth Lighting This Fall

Dear Friends, in 1963 three friends in Paris did something small that changed a shelf in every home since. Two years after they had opened Diptyque at 34 boulevard Saint-Germain, they launched their first candles: Aubépine, Cannelle and Thé, hawthorn, cinnamon and tea. Until then, the candle had been a purely practical object. In their hands it became a decorative, scented one. (There is a lot more to that shop, and it is worth a read.) If you want to keep going, Voluspa Candles: The Scents Worth Burning First is the one I would read next.

 

So what can we take from it. Mostly that a candle is a choice about a room, not a leftover from a power cut. When I think about the best scented candles, I look for three things: a scent with a clear point of view, a vessel I would leave out on a table, and wax and wick that burn evenly. Below I go family by family, and I end each section with modern options you can bring home.

 

We start with florals, the easiest door in. The Diptyque Roses is the classic glass candle with the oval label, and the 6.7 oz size is listed at a 50-hour burn. Its sister Tubéreuse is fresh green tuberose with fruit and milky nuances, a good one if you find tuberose heavy. Jo Malone's Red Roses, a blend of seven roses over lemon and honeycomb, comes in a cream box and suits a bedroom dresser. The Jasmine Sambac & Marigold sits in black glass with a lid. For something darker, Byredo's Burning Rose is a small black-wax candle with violet and leather, and Boy Smells' Violet Ends opens with rhubarb and black pepper before the powdery violet arrives.

 

My tip: smell the florals one at a time with a gap between, and pick the one you still remember an hour later.

A candle only tells the truth once the wax has melted all the way across. The National Candle Association says short burns stop the wax from melting completely, so give these woody ones a full melt pool before you blow them out. That is when Diptyque's Santal, fresh-cut sandalwood with a milky, slightly spicy richness, and Ambre, all balms, spices and precious woods, really open up.

 

Now the rest of the shelf. Le Labo's Palo Santo 14 is cedarwood, labdanum, incense and patchouli in a plain glass jar with a typewriter-style label. Boy Smells' Hard Wood goes from black pepper through worn leather into cedarwood, in a matte black vessel with a dusty mauve label. Nest New York's Hearth is oud with frankincense and smoky embers, in copper-black ribbed glass. Voluspa's Ambre Lumiere is amber incense and vanilla in embossed amber glass. Jo Malone's English Oak adds patchouli and bright cedrat, and Byredo's Woods is the quiet black-wax one, handmade in France with mouthblown glass and cotton wicks.

 

Picture her on a Sunday in October with the radiator ticking and a book open, and one of these on the coffee table. These are the candles for that hour. Pairing tip: a wooden tray, a dark ceramic dish, nothing shiny.

 

What I would skip: stacking two different woods in one small room. Pick one and let it be the whole story.

Most of us reach for sweet scents first, and then wonder why the room feels heavy by nine. Green candles do the opposite. Diptyque's Figuier is the one I would point a friend toward: bark, sap and leaves with almost-ripe figs, so it smells more like the tree than the fruit. I went deeper on a related idea in Boy Smells Candles: The Scents Worth Knowing.

 

Jo Malone's Green Tomato Vine is tender vines warmed by the afternoon sun in a greenhouse, and it is unisex. Voluspa's Jardin de Verveine mixes lemongrass, verbena, lime and herb cuttings in embossed green glass, and the Eucalyptus & White Sage adds cardamom and sun-warmed hinoki bark in a pale green jar. Otherland's Canopy is California fig, ivy greens and summer dew in an illustrated vessel. Boy Smells' Herbaceous goes from zesty bergamot to freshly cut grass. Nest New York's Wild Mint & Eucalyptus has basil and Thai ginger. And Trudon's Figuerie, in a glass vessel, is fig leaves, cedar leaves, hyacinth and a green bouquet over ethereal humus.

 

Here is a little history for the Trudon one. A salesman named Claude Trudon arrived in Paris in 1643, and the Saint-Roch church there has burned Trudon candles since that year. That is a long time to keep a wick lit.

 

Buying test: open the lid, smell it cold, then shut it and wait a minute. A green candle should still smell like leaves, not like soap.

 

What I would skip: green candles in a closed bathroom with no air. They need a little room.

When the first cold week hits, the shelf changes. I go looking for smoke. Diptyque's Feu de Bois is the cleanest example, resinous, smoky notes of logs slowly consumed, in the classic glass with the white oval label.

 

Trudon's Ernesto is the grown-up one: bergamot, grapefruit and rhum on top, then clove, labdanum and oak, with amber, leather, moss and tobacco underneath. Boy Smells' Vanilla Mace is sweet but spicy vanilla, formerly called Vanilla Era. Otherland's Cinnamon Musk brings Ceylon cinnamon, creamy almond and amber. Homesick's Burnt Marshmallow is crackling campfire flames, vanilla marshmallow and caramelized sugar in white frosted glass, a lovely thing for a house party. Nest New York's Pumpkin Chai is wild pumpkin, masala chai, cardamom, ginger and cinnamon in an orange glass. Voluspa's Vanilla Sunday leans on plum butter, whipped vanilla and praline mousse. Jo Malone's Myrrh & Tonka is dark glass with almond and vanilla tonka, lid included, and about 45 hours of burn.

 

The care bit matters more with candles this rich. The National Candle Association says to trim the wick to 1/4 inch before every use, for proper flame height, and a too-long wick makes the flame grow long and flare. Do it every time you relight.

 

In my fashion dreams it is a cashmere sock kind of Saturday, and the whole apartment smells like a campfire without the smoke detector.

 

What I would skip: pairing a smoky candle with a fragrance you are wearing the same night. Let one of them lead.

Size changes how a candle behaves. A three-wick candle melts wide and fast, so it suits an open living room better than a small bedroom, and it asks for the same care as any other: trim each wick before you light it.

 

Voluspa's Santal Vanille is a wide pearlescent glass with santal, French bourbon vanilla and oud. Its Jasmine Midnight Blooms, in cream glass, is Egyptian jasmine, tuberose, moonflower and dune grass. Otherland's Cardamom Milk is cardamom, frothy milk and praline woods in a peach vessel, and Fallen Fir is balsam fir, musk and winter spice in a gilded holiday one. Nest New York's Moroccan Amber, in white ribbed glass, adds sweet patchouli, heliotrope and bergamot.

 

Then the sculptural ones. Diptyque's 34 Boulevard Saint Germain in the 10.6 oz medium size is named for that address in Paris, with moss, blackcurrant leaves and spices. Le Labo's Santal 26 comes in a 42.3 oz concrete vessel, with Australian sandalwood, cedarwood, cardamom, iris and violet. Byredo's Bibliothèque is a 14.1 oz black-wax column with plum, cinnamon, a leather accord, violet and birch woods. Byredo began as candles: Ben Gorham was making them at home in Stockholm, and the brand carries a name drawn from the old English word redolence.

 

Buying test: check the vessel size against the table you have. A 42.3 oz block needs a surface that will hold it, a heat-safe one.

 

What I would skip: a three-wick in a small room. It will fill the room before you have sat down.

I would start with the room, then the family. Florals for a bedroom, woods and amber for the living room, green for a kitchen shelf, smoke and vanilla for October evenings.

 

Then the care: trim the wick, give it a full melt pool, and keep it away from drafts. That is how a candle stays even from the first burn to the last, and it is the least glamorous advice here and the most useful.

 

If I were buying one tonight, I would take a Diptyque classic for the shelf and a three-wick for the room where friends gather.

 

Diptyque turned the candle into a decorative object in 1963, and most of this shelf follows from that. With love, and a glowing room,