A candle that is wonderful in a small bedroom can be overwhelming in a hallway and undetectable in an open plan kitchen. Scent behaves according to the space it is in, and matching the two is most of what separates a candle you love from one you stop lighting.
Size to the room, not to the budget
The first decision, and the one people get backwards by buying the biggest they can afford.
A small candle in a large room produces a faint suggestion of fragrance near the candle and nothing at the other end. A large candle in a small room saturates it within twenty minutes, at which point people stop noticing the scent and start noticing a headache.
Broadly, small candles suit bedrooms, box rooms, bathrooms and desks. Medium suits an average British living room or a hallway. Large or tall candles suit open plan spaces, large sitting rooms and anywhere with high ceilings.
Our range runs across three sizes in the same four fragrances, which makes it straightforward to keep a scent you like and change the size to suit a different room.
Scent throw, hot and cold
Two terms worth knowing because they explain a common disappointment.
Cold throw is how a candle smells unlit, which is what you judge in a shop. Hot throw is how it smells burning, which is what you actually live with. They are not the same, and a candle with a strong cold throw does not necessarily have a strong hot one.
Wax type, fragrance load and wick all affect the difference. The practical upshot is that judging a candle by sniffing it in a shop tells you something, but not everything.
Matching scent to purpose
The other half of the decision, and it is about what the room is for.
Fresh and marine scents suit bathrooms, kitchens and anywhere you want a sense of air and cleanliness. Our Seabreeze sits in this family.
Woody and smoky scents suit living rooms and studies in autumn and winter, where the association is with fire and shelter. Wildlight Woods and Drawn by Flame work in this register.
Warm amber and resinous scents suit hallways and evenings, being enveloping rather than refreshing, which is what Amber Mosaic does.
British homes and why scent behaves oddly here
Worth a note. British houses are draughtier than their equivalents in most of Europe, which disperses fragrance faster, and they are often colder, which slows the release of scent from a wax pool.
The practical consequences are that a candle takes longer to fill a room here than the packaging implies, and that a candle in a well heated room will scent it considerably faster than the same candle in a cool one. Give it twenty minutes before deciding it is not working.
Layering without clashing
If you are burning more than one scent in a house, or a candle alongside an incense burner, a couple of rules prevent a mess.
Keep scents in the same family within sightline of each other, so a woody candle in the sitting room and a woody one in the hall rather than woody and marine competing at the top of the stairs.
Do not run a candle and incense in the same room simultaneously, which produces confusion rather than depth. Use one at a time, or put the burner in an adjacent space.
Our guide to choosing between plates, cone holders and oil burners covers the scent methods side by side.
Where to place a candle
Away from draughts, which make a flame flicker, smoke and burn unevenly. Off a windowsill, which is the draughtiest surface in most British rooms. Not directly under a shelf or a curtain, for the obvious reason.
Height matters more than people think. A candle at low level scents a room more slowly than one at chest height, since warm scented air rises and a candle on the floor sends fragrance up past everyone's noses to the ceiling.
Seasonality
Most households naturally shift scent families through the year without planning it, and it is worth doing deliberately. Fresh and marine scents suit spring and summer, when the windows are open and heavy fragrance feels stifling. Woody, smoky and amber scents suit autumn and winter, when the house is closed and the evenings are long.
Keeping two of your four fragrances for each half of the year makes both feel new when they come round again.
Our full candle range covers all four fragrances in small, medium and tall jars, and our guide to why candles tunnel covers getting the most from each one.
Questions people ask
What size candle do I need for my room?
Small for bedrooms, bathrooms and box rooms. Medium for an average living room or hallway. Large or tall for open plan spaces and high ceilings. Buying the biggest available is the commonest mistake.
Why does a candle smell stronger in the shop than at home?
Cold throw, how a candle smells unlit, is not the same as hot throw, how it smells burning. Judging by sniffing an unlit candle tells you something but not everything.
Which scents suit which rooms?
Fresh and marine for bathrooms and kitchens, woody and smoky for living rooms and studies in colder months, warm amber for hallways and evenings.
Can I burn a candle and incense together?
Better not in the same room at once, since the scents confuse rather than combine. Use one at a time, or put the burner in an adjacent space.
Why does my candle take so long to scent the room?
British homes are draughtier and often cooler than the conditions candles are tested in, which disperses fragrance faster and slows its release. Give it twenty minutes before judging.
