Christmas is many things. It’s a light-festooned Norwegian fir in a cosy cottage. A roaring fire. It’s clementines and spices and oranges. These evocative festive scents have all been distilled into candles that will instantly transform your home into a winter wonderland. From vanilla spice to clove buds, pine to myrrh, here is our edit of this season’s most covetable fragranced Christmas candles.
Christmas Candles
D.S & Durga
No Christmas tree this year? No problem – contemporary perfumer D.S. & Durga’s latest limited-edition release celebrates the festive fir in all its glory, combining balsam fir, spruce and Austrian pine to fill up your home with tidal yule. True Christmas joy in a candle.
Burn time: 60 hours (200g)
£60
Acqua di Parma
For an Italian, there are few things that say Christmas quite like the sweetness of panettone – so it seems only fitting that Acqua di Parma has taken the traditional festive pastry as inspiration for its latest festive scent. Blending sparkling citrus, vanilla and sweet candied fruits, it’s almost good enough to eat.
Burn time: 50 hours (200g)
£72
Cire Trudon
Handmade in beeswax, the Fir candle is imbued with the familiar scent of a Christmas tree, weaving together notes of fresh pine and cedar with aromatic myrrh and incense balanced out by sweet cinnamon.
Burn time: 60 hours (270g)
£98
Diptyque
For a white Christmas unlike any other, invest in Diptyque’s Neige candle, which is inspired by the delicacy of freshly fallen snow. Heliotrope and white musk mingle to evoke light-as-air snowflakes, while the candle’s twinkling glass holder, which features a map of stars dancing on the side, is the Parisian perfumer’s most magical design to date.
Burn time: 60 hours (190g)
£65
Alex’s Beauty Glossary
Goutal
This holiday season, chic Parisian brand Goutal has released a limited-edition version of its iconic Une Forêt d’Or candle, housed in a decorative green and gold vessel that’s as striking as any bauble on the tree. As for the scent, you’ll detect fresh oranges, mandarins and snow-dusted pine branches wafting through your home.
Burn time: 50 hours (300g)
£71
Boy Smells
These cult scented candles are created by hand at the home of the brand’s co-founders (and real-life couple) in Los Angeles and are proudly eco-friendly and cruelty free. For their festive edition, they’ve combined fir balsam with fig leaves to create an elegantly Christmassy fragrance.
Burn time: 50 hours (240g)
£50
Nest
New York-based brand Nest knows how to pack a serious Christmassy punch with its scented candles – their latest three-wick offering, Holiday, blends notes of sweet pomegranate, mandarin, pine, cloves, and cinnamon with a hint of vanilla and amber to fill your home with a delightfully festive aroma.
Burn time: 75-100 hours (600g)
£90
Skandinavisk
This ambiance-setter perfectly encapsulates the Boreal forests that cover half of Scandinavia (skog is Swedish/Norwegian for ‘forest’), with notes of pine needles and fir cones, birch sap and woodland lily of the valley.
Burn time: 50 hours (400g)
£45
Bamford
When it comes to beautiful sustainable gifts, Bamford have it all wrapped up. Take their new festive candle – made from a 100% natural blend of rapeseed and beeswax and fragranced with cinnamon and clove, it comes in a stylish dark green vessel printed with an illustration of a partridge and a pear tree. When the candle’s finished, simply repurpose the holder as a festive trinket in your home.
