The Best Smelling Candles In The World: Status Or Quality?

Authenticity, or Status Symbols? 

We live in a time of misinformation and surface value. From social media to the government, we are clearly presented with alternative realities.

Looking beyond the surface, I realize I am looking at someone else's ego every time I see a post on social media, and many times I see the same in the news. 

Follow along for a moment.

Every time you see an ad or a post showing you the best new spot, the fab new face serum, the new 25-star hotel (5 stars are not enough anymore) the new "it" bag, and lately the new "it" artist, posted by influencers, fashion stylists, marketers, "shakers & movers," or the various types of self-anointed gurus, the message is the same: "if you like what I like, what I am showing you, you have taste."

So, I conclude that what I am looking at is that person's perspective, not mine. But it is relatively easy to get sucked into the rabbit hole of accepting others' views as my own. After all, that is what I learned from my parents and other authority figures. Detaching from the past has helped me to continue building on my individuality, and from there, onto all the things I relate to, what I like and what I don't, what I bring into my realm, and what I can live without. 

We are constantly bombarded by information about improving everything in our lives, from our kitchens to bathrooms, wardrobes, and even the food we feed our dogs. It's true that part of it is a global trend spanning a couple of decades towards self-improvement. Also, there has been an overarching theme called "nesting," the desire to nest, the willingness to invest in our homes, not only from a practical viewpoint, but also decorating and styling every corner of our dwellings. Nesting is a trend that started after 911, and it has continued, shaped, and reshaped by world events and our domestic ups and downs. 

Then Covid happened, exacerbating everything already there regarding trends and social media. 

As a brand founder, I have watched things come and go, brands start and shut down, and product trend changes over the past five years. A lot has scrolled through my phone screen. But what remains is what I see in the lack of consistency and alternate realities pushed by brands and marketers to try to keep the previous momentum going, and it is not happening. Skepticism has taken hold of consumers; we are all questioning what is presented to us. And it's a global trend, pretty much like nesting, it pervades all aspects of consumption, from checking food labels to the composition of luxury handbags, to very recently, the quality of perfumes and home fragrance.

Smacked in the middle of consuming trends, luxury home fragrance is one of the hottest in the market since Covid. Rightly so, it fits perfectly in the overarching theme, the desire to style our homes, because well, we relearned to stay at home, and because we relearned to enjoy it, we decided to stay and not leave anymore.

The market is saturated with candles, diffusers, room sprays, and all home fragrance scent vehicles. According to the National Candle Association, approximately one hundred thousand new candle brands have been launched in the US since 2020. 

How do you discern when you walk into a store with thirty different candle brands or enter a department store website with twenty-six pages of candles? 

How can you find the best-smelling candles in the world? 

It's only natural that skepticism would eventually touch the fragrance market, and I am waiting to see how it will impact the multi-billion-dollar candle industry. 

Here is how the two thought processes converge: if you are a candle or luxury home fragrance aficionado, it can be confusing, frustrating, and ultimately discouraging to read all the information we find online about these functional pieces that have become objects of desire and symbols of status. And it can be even more discouraging if we look at influencers posting paid and unpaid content. Which one is best? Paid or unpaid? I am still undecided. If you love luxury home fragrance and candles, how do you peel through the veil?

Your Own Personal Taste Versus Someone Else's 

There is no specific answer other than listening to what you like, what is true to you, your likes and dislikes, and your gut feeling when you look at a social media post or grab a product in a store. 

If you are going to spend some money on an object you will bring home, wouldn't you subject it to the same critical eye as you do with a piece of furniture or decor? especially when the price tag is $100 or more? Would you buy it because it's from a brand you like or because it's a brand that others like? Is it because it's part of a fashion conglomerate, or because you really like the vessel or the fragrance? 

I can tell you that unless the fragrance is created and authored by a perfumer, the fragrance quality of all candles out there is made by the same industries that make fragrance for detergents, soaps, and floor cleaners. I examined this in another post. Compounded fragrance for the home fragrance industry is made by large companies that compound it with low-cost materials and sell it by the 500 kg pallet. The wax quality is also average, whether it is of vegetable or mineral origin, there is no such thing as a "luxury wax", waxes are commodities, manufactured by the millions of pounds per year, globally. 

So, what differentiates one candle from another is the external presentation and the story told around it. 

In this sense, you are looking at someone else's ego telling you what to like and what to buy. 

But I can share with you a short list of qualifiers that I used to apply when I was just shopping for candles for my home, before I decided to create my brand. 

Quality Qualifiers

• Look at the vessel carefully: Is the glass clear or foggy? Is it ceramic, porcelain, or bone china? Would you drink from it? Would you use the vessel for something else after the candle is finished? How does it compare to other glassware you have at home? Would you sit this candle next to your expensive crystal during a dinner party? Do you actually like ceramic, porcelain, or bone china? Or prefer glass? What about crystal?
• Look at the labels, are they well glued, or do they seem as if they can peel off? Are they paper, vinyl, plastic, or metal? Are they straight or slanted, seemingly carelessly stuck? What about the typography? Is there a cohesive styling or a mix of incongruent designs? And the spelling and grammar? 
• Look at the bottom care label. Does it look customized or generic, purchased by the thousands? Is it paper that could potentially get stuck to your furniture, or is it a heatproof, waterproof material like vinyl or metal? 
• Look at the box. Is the printing neat or fading? Is it dirty? Is it wrapped in cellophane? Is it sturdy or flimsy? Does it feel hefty, like quality?
• Look at the fragrance description, either on the vessel or the box, or look up the brand online. Does it speak to you? Are you buying a vanilla candle because you like vanilla or because it is trendy? 
• Look up the brand online while you are shopping. Do they have a stylish website? Do they have an expansive collection of fragrances and products? What is the source of their inspiration? Do they explain how they make their fragrances or where they get them? Do they show and explain their process? 

When you bring a scented candle or any other piece of luxury home fragrance home, it is meant to be enjoyed for the product's entire lifespan. Purchase candles and diffusers you will enjoy smelling as you move through your rooms, grab a book, take a bath, or watch TV. Whatever others say about your candles when they visit you is their opinion, not yours. If you spend a yearly budget on these necessities, make it worth it, make it work for you, not for a social media post, to gather likes, or to conform with what you see others posting or doing. 

Fragrance impacts our well-being in ways that we are still learning, so it goes beyond buying the latest brand or the latest launch from a so-called luxury brand. Define for yourself what your luxury parameters are and what your list of qualifiers is. Decide if you enjoy them because of their quality or because they symbolize status. Both philosophies are valid; it's just that one of them will eventually bore you, leaving you asking for more. 

RHR

 

Disclaimer: This is the number of times I have to repeat the keywords in this blog post, in this case the title, for it to be indexable and findable by SEO. You can imagine what the content would look like if it was inserted in the text. This is not ChatGPT, I wrote the content, so this is the only way right now that I can conform to how SEO allegedly works. 

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