Beyond the basic elements of wax, wick and flame, they say, their products bear little resemblance to the $10 candles sold in gift shops in flavors like apple cinnamon or blueberry scone. People will tell you how their candles are hand-poured, or use soy wax instead of petroleum-based paraffin, or come in handmade containers of crystal, or are scented by the world’s top perfumers using costly essential oils. The luxury candle industry certainly believes its products are enhancing. It makes you feel a little fancier than your current surroundings might reflect.” “But in the scope of something you can buy to make your studio apartment feel luxurious, it’s not. “In the scope of how much a candle should cost, it’s ridiculous,” Ms. “I love my house to smell like a gym I can’t afford to go to,” she said. But like so many high-end items, in the last few years candles like these have been adopted by an audience beyond the superrich.īut she admits to buying candles from Diptyque and Le Labo for her apartment, as well as the SoulCycle by Jonathan Adler candle, a collaboration between the designer and the fitness brand. When Tom Ford designed for Gucci, he placed the same Diptyque Figuier candle throughout the brand’s stores, his offices and his home, so the soothing scent of fig wood trailed him around the globe. Jacqueline Kennedy illuminated the White House with Rigaud candles. “They’re always a very popular gift item,” she said.Ĭertainly, giving someone an Astier de Villatte Commune de Paris candle would make a statement - as bold as if you held up a crisp $100 bill and lit a match.Īs I learned, luxury candles have been popular among a certain set for years. Barbara Miller, a spokeswoman for the National Candle Association, a trade group, said that candles are a $2 billion a year industry and that about 35 percent of those sales typically happen in the fourth quarter. With Christmas and New Year’s days away, and Hanukkah just ended, it is prime candle-buying and -lighting season.
Also this year, the supermodel Petra Nemcova and a partner introduced a series of six Be the Light candles that aim to capture, in scent, countries she finds exciting, including the impoverished nation of Haiti (where she recently moved), which is represented by a $98 candle called Haitian Hibiscus Breeze.
Cire Trudon, another brand with French roots, promotes itself as “the oldest and most prestigious wax manufacturer in the world” and sells a $125 (unscented) candle in the shape of a bust of Marie Antoinette. Diptyque and Le Labo, two French brands whose standard candles fall in the range of $60 to $75, have a cultlike following among the entertainment and fashion crowds.