Candles in the bin? Not this Christmas...

With sales smoking and glamorous new candle rooms opening up all over town, it’s no longer the present we snuff out and re-gift. Burn one down this Christmas...
9 December 2013

Do you know your Diptyque from your Cire Trudon? Should you be buying the new Jo Malone Blue Spruce, or is it all about top notes of frankincense and myrrh? And what about the packaging: cool Yule or rich bitch? In the past few weeks, London’s biggest stores have all rushed to open dedicated candle rooms and concessions in time for the rest of us to enjoy a festively fragrant Christmas, competing to be the smartest and smelliest, and stocking the most obscure or exclusive brands.

Yes, the scented candle has come of age and is hot property after years on the shelf. The days of it being the gift that keeps on giving, literally — the average scented candle apparently gets re-gifted at least 11 times (via your mother-in-law, hostess or just someone you don’t know very well) — are over. So as the department stores report scorching sales figures — John Lewis has sold more than a million in the past 12 months — what’s the best way to wade your way through the capital’s hot wax melting pot?

For indulgent extravagance, head to Harrods, which has just launched its new Fragrance Room after seeing candle sales double this year. Situated within Luxury Home, its black and gold fragrance bar is a great sampling spot, but beware: wax won’t be the only thing you’ll be burning if you fall for the Baobab Maxi Max Jungle Safari candle. The faux zebra-skin-wrapped whopper — it weighs 7kg — with its “patchouli, cinnamon and candied lemon, with spicy and woody notes which are subtly savage and masculine” costs £599. Could this be London’s most expensive scented candle?

Selfridges has opened its first Diptyque Christmas pop-up and reckons it will sell more than 15,000 of the über-posh Parisian candles between now and December 25, with Baies — think berries and roses — its bestseller at £40. Sales are up nearly 30 per cent on last year and the store also claims to sell more of each brand than any other store, including the covetable theatrically packaged Ortensia candle, £99, by Fornasetti.

For an escape from the retail hurly-burly, nip into the new Fortnum’s Candle Room, which is all gilded cream tranquillity. It sells its own scented candles — made from beeswax harvested from hives on its roof — and its bestseller is the citrusy Orange Pomander, £40. For a whiff of the Americas, head to Liberty, which has just received an exclusive shipment from New York of Cellarius, £54, by Olivia Giacobetti — we’re talking notes of papyrus essence and cedarwood. Liberty also has its own packaged candle, Insolite, £45, made in collaboration with Diptyque.

For those who simply don’t nose, Jo Malone, has launched “an in-store candle and scent surround consultation“ service, same-day delivery in a vintage Morris Minor, and bespoke engraving from £10. Always one for a limited-edition Christmas pong, its Blue Spruce Deluxe is “inspired by a forest in winter”. With a £110 price tag, you can guarantees no top notes of pine fresh lavatory cleaner, which tends to be the case with the cheaper candle.

If you’re still confused, try John Lewis, never knowingly underscented. After its massive rise in sales, the Oxford Street store opened its first Candle Shop in September. It sells 22 brands and 3,000 different candles, with Cire Trudon’s tobacco and leather-infused Ernesto at £60 blazing a trail. But its Christmas bestseller so far? It’s the Lily-Flame Christmas Spice with cinnamon and cloves: shocking pink and just £8.50. You have been warned.

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