Are you exploring scented candles and home fragrances? The point is: smell matters. You can look terrible, but you always have to smell good – never the other way around. Scented candles and Home fragrances create an atmosphere; they tell stories and speak of something deeper. They are as powerful a force on us as they are romantic.
“Redolence” is a concept that’s as beautiful as the sound of the word itself. Taken from Old French, from re(d)– ‘back, again’ and olere ‘to smell’, it means the emotions and memories created upon smelling a scent. The classic example is the thoughts and feelings evoked from freshly brewed coffee in the morning, or a passing fragrance from a person in the street that transports you to a time or place in childhood.
While fragrances for the person have consistently been seen as necessary, it’s only in the last few years that scented candles and home fragrances for our spaces have taken on a similar level of import. You might attribute this to the rise in independent, boutique fragrance brands, but whatever the reason, there’s now a wealth of beautiful scents for us to experience and light up our living spaces.
From the more established independent brands empowering everyone in their supply chain to small, hyperlocal family labels nestled in ancient city streets, we gathered some of our favourite scented candles and home fragrances.
The Best Luxury Scented Candles
ZAHA HADID DESIGN Prime Small Candle
The Zaha Hadid Design range unites glass design with statement pieces in their candles. The Prime scented candle is arranged in a matte bone China to emulate an articulated exoskeleton. The scent is of tonka beans, wood and gardenia, combining a unique scent with a unique vessel.
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MILLER HARRIS Santal Scented Candle
Designed with cool autumn mornings in mind, the Santal-scented candle has a heady aroma of sandalwood, pink pepper, risp amber and a hint of moss, all finished off with a touch of vanilla co2.
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SAINT CHARLES Mind Balance Natural Scented Candle
Similar to the Mood Balance Room Spray, the Saint Charles Mind Balance Scented Candle combines lavender geranium and frankincense to create a calming scented candle.
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ORMAIE Sarong
Identifiable for its unique appearance and its individual scent, the Ormaie Sarong will transport you back to your gap year in Thailand. Featuring notes of patchouli, Vanilla Bourbon and Myrrh.
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TRUDON x Balmain Large Scented Candle
One of the most exclusive scented candles on our list, the Trudon x Balmain candle has floral notes with both feminine and masculine notes. The crimson glass vessel has gold foil stripes with a gold label that completes the aesthetic.
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DIPTYQUE Candle 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain
Staying with the Diptyque signature scent, the candle allows you to fill your room with the fresh green aromas of moss, cassis leaves and oriental spices. Set in a white transparent opal glass with the iconic oval emblem.
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Loewe Home Scents Colourless Beetroot Scented Candle
This scented candle is encased in a deep magenta terracotta pot, beautifully complementing the candle’s scent. Offering 80 hours of burn time, the fruity beetroot scent will infuse your home wonderfully.
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GINORI 1735 The Lady Large Candle
This white porcelain vessel is adorned with an expressive and elegant face known as The Lady. With top notes of mandarin and bergamot and base notes of white flowers and white wood, this scented candle has around 130 hours of burn time.
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Fornasetti Bacio Scented Candle
This scented candle has a bold Bacio print with a red, white, and black colour scheme synonymous with Fornasetti. The scented candle can act as a work of art and a way of filling your home with a warm tonal scent.
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MALIN + GOETZ Dark Rum Candle
A perfect gift for the bachelor in your life, this dark rum-scented candle doesn’t just smell delicious but looks rugged too. Each candle is handmade and has up to 60 hours of burn time.
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Diptyque White Patchouli Scented Candle
As well as the Diptyque signature scent, the brand also offers a range of traditionally scented candles. This Patchouli scented candle is infused with leaves from Indonesia and has dark and rich notes.
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BYREDO Bibliothèque Candle
Transporting you back to your study days spent in the library, this candle has notes of peach, plum and vanilla. All blended with a base note of patchouli. The black glass vase with a bold white label makes this candle stand out above the rest in appearance.
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Gucci Esotericum Scented Candle
This candle is known for its striking gold and duck egg blue vessel and its unique scent. With top notes of orange and jasmine and base notes of leather and sea salt, this candle smells and looks spectacular!
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BYREDO Fleur Fantôme Candle
This is another beautiful, scented candle by Byredo. The Fleur Fantome scent is a blend of rhubarb, and tulips. Lemon and heliotrope.
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Tom Dixon’s Black Fire Scented Candle
An excellent gift for the design enthusiast in your life, the Tom Dixon Black Fire Scented Candle doesn’t just smell spectacular and looks divine with its fire-red glass jar that adorns the Tom Dixon logo.
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Laboratory Perfumes – Amber Candle
Think expansive lush greenery, crisp air and moody, cloudy skies – let the romantic English countryside seep into your interiors with a scent from Laboratory Perfumes, London’s darling fragrance maker since its founding in 2011 by former menswear retailer Aaron Firth. Disillusioned and disappointed by fast fashion, he sought to create something sustainable and lasting, finding enduring and profoundly personal inventions in fragrance. Each creation is
Fornasetti Regalo – Otto
From the combined skill and flair of the legendary Milanese atelier Fornasetti and master Chanel perfumer Olivier Polge comes the Regalo Otto scented candle. Housed in a ceramic lidded container with Fornasetti’s iconic visage motif, the Regalo Otto mixes Mediterranean herbs, wood, and incense — all connected to the atelier itself. For a Milanese, Fornasetti may need no introduction, but for everyone else it’s crucial to understand Fornasetti’s place in contemporary Milan. Founded by Piero Fornasetti in the post-war moment, the atelier is now headed by his son, Barnaba Fornasetti. It continues to design and produce all of its wares proudly and meticulously within Italy. Place the Regalo Otto candle in your home, and you’ll truly enjoy a multisensorial experience.
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Sana Jardin – Tiger By Her Side
Established by former aid worker and social justice policy advocate Amy Christensen, Sana Jardin is a fragrance company that aims to go ‘beyond’ the buzzword of sustainability by focussing on economic female empowerment. Using circular economy principles, the brand enables the women harvesters supplying the raw ingredients for Sana Jardin’s fragrances to become entrepreneurs in their own right, offering skills training to develop and upcycle remaining raw materials to create and sell their products in their local economies themselves. On the cusp of 2021, we say this is where sound, future-proof businesses must operate. As for the scents themselves, we believe the label’s most popular, Tiger By Her Side, is the best introduction to the brand. With Moroccan rose, Indonesian patchouli, and Somalian incense notes, the base is amber—the essential oil associated with emotional clarity and inner strength.
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Byredo Chai – Candle
Following a chance encounter with perfumer Pierre Wulff, native Swede Ben Gorham left a painting career to pursue an alternative creative endeavour based on olfactory senses rather than visual. Teaming up with industry leaders Olivia Giacobetti and Jerome Epinette, luxury brand Byredo was founded in Stockholm in 2006. It has since gained global attention with its inviting scents and sleek design, showing that Gorham’s aesthetic eye hasn’t gone to waste. Nothing quite exudes warmth like the fragrance of Chai, and Byredo’s has a feel of nostalgia behind it, sparked by Gorham’s childhood memories of time spent with his grandmother and mother in their home country of India. The bold spices of Indian Chai Tea are bottled into the distinct Byredo monochrome candle for a familial, recognizable feel coupled with a chic aesthetic.
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Timothy Han / Edition – The Decay of the Angel
We wrote earlier that scents tell stories, but consult Timothy Han for fragrances that take that idea one step further. The master perfumer and his brand, Timothy Han / Edition, proudly declare their debt to literature and the authors and poets that inspire us through the centuries. With perfume names directly lifted from great, although in numerous instances, niche or overlooked, works of literature, the brand demands us to recognize the romantic power of scent (they even sell the pieces on their website, alongside their scents). Interestingly for our age, where the emphasis is on ‘natural’ ingredients that come into contact with the body, Timothy Han doesn’t shy away from using nature-identical ingredients (and telling us when they do). The reason is simple: ethics.
A classic example would be musk—an essential scent, but one in which to achieve the ‘natural’ scent would mean killing the animal itself. This is unacceptable, and Han should draw a line in the sand about this. Our selection from his current collection is the evocatively titled The Decay of the Angel, a rich and exotic burnt floral fragrance inspired by Yukio Mishima’s 1971 novel of the same name.
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Best Smelling Scent Diffuser and Room Spray
DIPTYQUE Room Spray 34 Boulevard Saint Germain
For that quick spritz of Diptyques signature scent, this room spray is formulated similarly to an indoor eau de toilette.
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MILLER HARRIS Figue Scented Diffuser
The Miller Harris Figue Scented Diffuser is the perfect way to provide a continuous scent of fig trees, earthy tones and soft woods to your home every minute of the day. The ideal gift for the house’s proud family member.
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DIPTYQUE Hourglass Diffuser Figuier
This diffuser has a striking appearance with an hourglass outline and green and gold accents. The design aims to provide an hour of scent before turning on its axis for another hour.
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SAINT CHARLES Raumspray Mood Balance
The Saint Charles Mood Balance Spray is designed to help lift the room’s mood with the 100% natural essential oil blend, including geranium, ylang-ylang, and clary sage.
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TRUDON Spiritus Sancti Colorless Classic Reed Diffuser
Combining incense, Lily of the Valley and Labdanum, the Spiritus Sancti diffuser is designed to transport you to a 16th-century Parisian Cathedral. The hand-blown glass vessel and gold foiled label complete the look.
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Loewe Home Scents Colorless Liquorice Scent Diffuser
Jonathan Anderson and Ms Nuria Cruelles developed this exclusive home scent from Loewe to combine an aroma of liquorice in a ceramic vessel with rattan sticks. The Loewe logo is adorned on the glass bottle and is a perfect addition to any room design. The ideal home diffuser set!
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Trudon Colorless Abd El Kader Room Spray
A room spray that transports you straight to Arab climes, the Abd El Kader room spray has notes of clove, apple, spearmint, lemon, jasmine, and vanilla. Dispensed in a vintage-style perfume pump, this is a gift you will want to keep.
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GINORI 1735 The Amazon Diffuser
The Amazon Diffuser is named such for its white porcelain and gold-toned vessel. This diffuser comes pre-boxed in a presentation box, so is the ideal low-maintenance diffuser.
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DIPTYQUE Scented Oval, 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain
This beautiful white porcelain oval framed medallion is infused with Diptyque’s signature fragrance. Ideal for hanging in wardrobes or placing in drawers.
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Costa Brazil — Limited Edition Breu
Bring good energy into your home with this limited edition and one-of-a-kind offering from Costa Brazil. A sacred resin extracted from the Almaciga tree of the Amazon rainforest, Breu is used in healing rituals to ward off dark spirits. It is said to have among its benefits the enhancement of focus, treatment of respiratory issues and alleviation of headaches and stress – consider us sold. These sorts of natural wonders to be discovered in the Amazon are at the heart of this sustainable beauty line created by Brazilian designer Francisco Costa, drawing its inspiration from the rituals, local ingredients, and sense of clarity found in the raw world of the rainforest. Burn the Breu for no longer than a minute, breathe in its rich and woodsy scent, and relish in a soothed mind and cleansed spirit.
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Tom Dixon — Swirl Ball Scented Candle
In any interior of British product designer Tom Dixon, no item is too small to be ordinary. The expert creator of ‘exceptional everyday items’ shot to fame in the mid-1980s with his innovative furniture design, continuing while collecting a host of awards to enjoy his current status as one of Britain’s most celebrated and original designers. Like most Dixon products, the Swirl Ball candle has a life of its own, and an afterlife at that – made from powdered residue from the marble industry, this sustainable piece is intended to serve a purpose long after the wax has disappeared: as a design object, it can be appreciated and displayed in its own right. With its splashy, eye-catching colours, patterns and distinct geometric shapes, it certainly has no difficulty finding the centre stage for its artistry beyond an appealing aroma.
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Claus Porto — Cerina Reed Diffuser Brise Marine
A refreshingly modern addition to your home is brought to you by a historic brand. Claus Porto dates back to 1887 when German entrepreneurs Ferdinand Claus and Georges Schweder opened a soap and fragrance factory in the vibrant city of Porto, where they made a name for themselves with dramatic, colourful designs in both their products and their packaging. This minimalist all-white diffuser is a paired-down look from the fragrance house (though wrapped up in a traditional, playful package ideal for gift-giving), a vessel certainly to add a touch of style to any corner of your home. Crafting aromas inspired by Portuguese details and landscapes, Claus Porto mixes Bergamot, Mediterranean Pine and Sea Moss that will whisk you away to the salty breeze and balmy air of those famous Porto marinas.
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Best Scented Candles and Home Fragrances, the Bottom Line
Now is the time to buy one of the best luxury scented candles or home diffuser fragrances, settle into your favourite comfortable nook and let your fragrance of choice fill the room – give in to nostalgia, let yourself be transported to another time, another place, or simply another headspace. A straightforward addition to your mantelpiece and a whole world of experience await you.
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