Everyone has always benefited from any kind of reinvention. Lindsay Lohan is still waiting for hers. However, for the few and contrite, the blessings have been abundant.
Formerly seen as objects for a mantelpiece for spinsters who had cats and were involved in book clubs, the scented candle is now more a star of a designer home rather than a chorus girl for a country fair. We all grew up with those one-note candle wonders that smelled more like wax than cranberries (or so it alleges).
Clinton Palanca once quipped that scented candles have replaced fruitcakes as the reigning generic Christmas gift. As usual, Clinton never ceased to inspire. That year I created a box for which I collaborated with a friend of mine for Christmas gifts, to create candles inspired by the favorite places I traveled to that year. One captures the flowery mornings in Nha Trang (ylang ylang and jasmine…not my favorite), another tries to arrogate the gently saliferous breeze of the Maldives (coconuts and palm), another the urbane notes of a New York afternoon (tobacco and honey) and alas the crisp breeze of a California summer (woody greens and orange).
That year after finishing my Christmas project, that fruitcake became my lifelong obsession. My girl Cristina Garcia would no-fail gift me every time she came back to visit from New York with the most potent and hypnotic candles. Whether it was a vat of Seda France Monarch Quince in a resplendent Jardins ceramic pot or a selection of Votivo candles that you sometimes didn’t even have to light for it to scent a room (Forgotten Sage is never to be forgotten).
Ever since then, each room in any of my homes has in some way been inspired by a candle. My bedroom is lit with anything in a Seda France Pagoda box (Japanese Quince, Monarch Quince and Red Amber being my favorites). It’s utterly seraphic and goes very well with Bach’s “Keyboard Concerto No. 5,” or as I call it “candy music.” A pleasing lullaby is always needed to end the day. The music and scent combination also serves well when I choose my outfits. It’s played on loop that my dog Milo is already in talks of drafting a restraining order against this madness.
The vanity however requires a different soundtrack. I really love the Divinyls song I Touch Myself, just because it’s so shameless and it goes so well with my MAC makeup. While I’m not Stanley Kubrick and am lost without his natural light lenses (he shot the movie Barry Lyndon all in natural light with startling clarity, using these ultra-fast 50mm lenses developed by Zeiss for NASA for the Apollo moon landings), I do have three soft focus light bulbs and an unforgiving mirror to do my face in. This asks for something discreet. I quite like Olive Lavande by La Compagnie de Provence. It’s soothing and it keeps my hands from shaking while I put on my eyeliner. It also gives the vanity a rustic touch, which welcomes different kinds of bronzers warmly. So to speak.
The bath requires something more indulgent. I’m a sucker for elaborately decorated nothings. Voluspa may sell itself through its luxuriant packaging but the scent each candle bears is equally melodramatic. All my choices fall under the Maison Noir range. My personal bath is anchored in Black Figue and Chypre, hypnotic and heady just the way you want to be in the loo. The guest bath and the powder room share the joys of a bolder Crisp Champagne candle housed in a steel cylinder. It looks like an art nouveau Oscar statue.
Now this is where I get edgy. It’s usually a no-no to have scented candles in the dining room. There’s nothing like mixing crispy pata and Jo Malone’s Wild Bluebell during dinner. But I need my candles! I have found the ultimate neutral scent Cire Trudon Odeur de Lune candle, which is supposed to smell like the moon. It’s based on NASA soil samples and gives off a very warm scent of carbon, which doesn’t say much in the scent department. I especially love the history of this candle maker. Marie Antoinette was said to have kept them by her side until she got hacked. For tea, I like the slightly old school aristocratic Balmoral, only if we’re serving Earl Grey. It’s an injustice, even for a candle freak like me, to light a scented candle in the company of beautiful herbal teas.
For parties I like a bold John Galliano for Diptyque to set the mood. When there is smoking involved, which usually happens when I have no choice in the matter (usually after 3 a.m.), I like to belt out my Voluspa Vacarro Orange and Myrhh candle. It totally kills the smell.
I admit there is this that meretricious Pinoy in me and that I adore a selection of Fornasetti candles that remain sinfully unlit. I use it as décor and I know that to some degree that’s a little gauche. Did you ever notice those sad Diptyque candles that have become nests of fragile little dust balls in over-decorated homes (they use potpourri and maybe a brave dash of Glade lavender for fragrance)? Its dauntless cotton wick still praying for a flame. Well, that’s me with my Fornasetti candles. The unisex Otto scent is a subtle herb aroma created by Olivier Polge, son of the famed nose Jacques Polge. It’s a cute son-son thing going on: Barnaba (son of Piero Fornasetti) and Olivier playing candles together honoring their daddy’s legacies.
I love my home and you know what they say about candles — it’s a part of honoring it. I’m not a diffuser girl and sprays are just good for the linens. There’s something about the flame of a candle and the delicate whisper of scent that floats through the heat. It’s romantic. No wooden reed will do that for me. I travel with candles. The little Votivo tins are very good for this purpose and hotel/motel rooms seem less distant.
Good candles usually have a mix of oil and wax. The oil keeps the fragrance strong. Beeswax burns beautifully, almost like poetry. Soy candles, which are a little more green, burn horribly. I do love old-fashioned candle makers like Cire Trudon. There’s something to be said about a well-twisted cotton wick that stands proudly on a silken tub of perfumed wax. It’s a beautiful luxury. A romance.
People light candles for different reasons in different places. All the same, we do it to make life a little better.