Best Scented Candles in the World

Best Long Lasting Scented Candles

Scented candles can be a wonderful treat, and the right fragrance can really enhance the atmosphere of your home.

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These days, there is such a huge range of styles and scents the candles lovers truly are spoiled for choice. Candles are definitely one of those luxury items where, rather than one simply being better than the other, personal preference plays a large role in choice. Some prefer strong scents that fill a room, ready for special occasions, while others prefer subtle smells for day-to-day use.

Here are some of the pros and cons of the most well-known brands, as well as some important things to consider when choosing, to help give you an idea of what is the best brand of scented candles.

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These are the best scented candles in the world:

Best for bedroom: Benevolence Wild Lavender

With some reviewers mentioning that it smells “insanely good” and others “how beautiful it is to look at,” this candle is a favorite. Although the burn time is only 35 hours, the general consensus is that it’s totally worth it for the smell and beauty.

Best luxury: Dyptique Baies Candle

Dyptique has been making fine fragrance in France since the 1960’s. They’ve really perfected capturing natural and alluring scents that don’t overpower but gently linger and delight.

The Baies candle smells like a bouquet of roses sweetened with jammy black currants.

Best cheap option: Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Scented Soy Tin Candle

For less than $5, you can scent your home with floral and garden fresh lavender. Some reviewers mentioned that the smell might not be what your’re expecting but if you’ve ever used Mrs. Meyer’s Lavender dish soap, you know exactly what you’re getting.

The soy wax and lead free wick make for a delight candle and you can’t go wrong with the price.

Best long lasting scent: Enjoy Your Life Rose and Garnet Berry Candle

This long lasting candle burns for a whopping 125 hours and delivers a pleasant and warm smell. The cotton wick and soy wax make it a perfect candle for any one who is eco-conscious. The beautiful designs and box also make this a great gift!

Best on Amazon: Chesapeake Bay Candle Scented Candle, Stillness + Purity

This Chesapeake Bay candle has over 35,000 reviews on Amazon raving about “the clean and refreshing smell,” and the “not too strong or overwhelming scent.”

With over 50 hours of burn time and a lovely floral scent with rose, jasmine and fresh peonies, this candle is clear winner.

Why are Yankee candles so expensive?

Yankee candles are one of the most recognizable makes of candles out there, and they’re certainly more expensive than non-branded alternatives. The company boasts several selling points as reasons for this.

First, they have been specially designed to burn evenly. For regular candle users this is a big deal. Often candles will burn a ‘well’ right in their middle, around the wick, leaving the outside unmelted. This can mean you end up with a chunk of the candle not being burned at all, so you’ve paid for wax that you don’t get the benefit of.

When candles burn unevenly like this they can also leave ugly wax smudge marks on the side of the glass. Being designed to avoid this ‘tunneling’ means that they burn efficiently, so a single Yankee Candle tends to last a long time. They remain popular because they are one of the best long-lasting scented candles.

Another reason Yankee Candles are fairly expensive is the sheer range of scents they have on offer. With over 200 fragrances available, they’re sure to have one you like. Experimenting with a new scent is part of the fun of buying from Yankee Candles.

The company also claims to make candles with exceptional throw. Throw is a term used to describe how well a candle’s scent travels and circulates. To their credit, Yankee Candles do tend to review well in terms of throw, with them matching or exceeding most other brands when it comes to their ability to fill a room with fragrance.

While they’re more costly than unbranded or budget candles, they’re actually not the most expensive out there. In terms of price they’re mid-range. Also, while the up-front cost may seem high, they actually last a long time when compared to other brands. For cost per hour of burning, Yankee Candles work out to be pretty good value, coming it at a little more expensive than budget candles but considerably cheaper than premium brands.

What is the most popular Yankee Candle scent?

Yankee Candles offer an incredible variety of scents, but there are a few that are consistently popular with candle lovers.

Autumn wreath is a spiced, mellow, warm scent. It remains one of the top selling candle fragrances in the colder months, especially around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Macintosh is a considered a classic by Yankee Candle fans. It produces a pure, strong scent of apples.

Pink Sands is also very popular, having a subtle sweet scent, with notes of vanilla, sweet florals, and sharp citrus.

Probably the most popular though, is Clean Cotton. It’s a delicate ‘fresh’ scent, that smells of crisp cotton, mixed with a hint of lemon and summer flowers. It’s a great fragrance for everyday use, and makes for one of the best scented candles for the bedroom.

Is Yankee Candle better than Bath and Body Works?

Bath and body Works candles are around the same price as Yankee Candles. They both review very well, and each have their own fans who swear by them as the best make of scented candles. Both products are high quality, so which is better comes down to taste in a couple of areas.

When people pick Bath and Body Works over Yankee Candles, or vice versa, it’s usually because they offer different, exclusive scents. Bath and Body Works also have a very different aesthetic to Yankee Candles, with a more boutique design compared to Yankee Candles more homely look. As both brands tend to be well reviewed and have a long life for the price, it really is a matter of personal preference.

One noteworthy difference between the two companies is that Bath and Body Work candles have three wicks, rather than just one. This means that they tend to give off a stronger scent and have greater throw, but they burn faster, as so don’t last as long.

There’s not a clear winner between the two, so the choice is really up to you to pick which matches your own sense of style.

Best Scented Candles on Amazon

Amazon’s Choice: Chesapeake Bay Refresh + Rejuvenate

Most Durable: Yankee Candle Balsam & Cedar

Most Refreshing: Glade Candle Jar Radiant Berries

Best for home: La Jolie Muse Jasmine Scented Candle

Best Bath and Body Works: Bath & Body Works White Barn 3-Wick Candle in Mahogany Teakwood High Intensity

Best Highly Scented: Lilac Blossom Candle – Odor Eliminating Highly Fragranced Candle

Best Seller: Yankee Candle MidSummer’s Night

Best Iconic: Capri Blue Candle Volcano

Are Jo Malone Candles worth it?

Jo Malone is a British perfume and scented candle brand that specializes in artisan products. Their candles are handmade, using traditional methods in the heart of South East England’s countryside. As well as crafting their candles using such unique and time-consuming methods, the company also insists on using only the highest quality ingredients. They have a reputation for being among the best scented candles in the UK.

They are certainty at the higher end of the market in terms of price, costing over three times as much as Bath and Body Works candles on average.

In terms of price per hour of use, Jo Malone candles cost a little more than $1.25 per hour, which is significantly more expensive than Yankee candles, at roughly 30 cents per hour.

Whether they are worth it is very much down to personal opinion. In comparison tests, they tend to score similarly to less expensive brands for strength of scent and for throw. For some people, picking a candle is about getting the right balance between quality and price. For others, there’s a certain prestige that comes with owning exclusive, luxury candles.

There’s no doubt that Jo Malone candles are high quality, but whether they’re worth the cost depends on your taste.

Best Jo Malone candles:

Are expensive candles worth it?

This depends on what you want from your candles. If you’re looking for non-toxic, all-natural ingredients, then these candles tend to be more expensive than budget candles. It’s also worth noting that while buying very expensive candles may not necessarily have better throw or longer burn time, budget candles do tend to perform more poorly than mid-range to premium candles in these areas.

Where it might be a good idea to buy a luxury scented candle as a treat, as a gift, or if it has a particular smell or look you can’t find elsewhere, for everyday use candles such as Yankee Candle or Bath and Body Works are probably better value for money.

What is the most expensive candle?

There are many opulent candles in the $100+ range that cater for very expensive tastes

One of the more expensive is Scheherazade’s Quarters 1001 Lights Candle. Inspired by 1001 nights of middle eastern folklore, the candle comes inside a beautiful themed porcelain vessel and smells of frankincense, lotus flower, and blackcurrant.

Even more costly is Gucci’s Virgin Violet Candle at $680. Housed in a designer porcelain container and with the scent of must, violet leaves and iris petals, this candle is as much a fashion statement as it is a piece of home decor.

What candles do celebrities use?

Lots of celebrities have been vocal about their love of candles.

Kristen Bell has been vocal about her adoration of Preemptive Love and how she has one of their candles in each room of her house. Not only are all of their candles beautifully crafted, but they are handmade by Syrian and Iraqi refugees whose lives have been affected by war. The profits made from their sale contribute to the company’s aid work. The Village Common Oprah Winfrey

Taylor Swift has made it clear that she’s a fan of Byredo candles, with Tree House, which has notes of leather, bamboo, and pimento, being her favorite.

Perhaps most famously, Meghan Markle is a fan of Figuier by Diptyque, a delicately fig-leaf scented candle, which she burned before and during the royal wedding.

Are scented candles bad for you?

Many wax scented candles are made from paraffin. Paraffin is a petroleum by-product and there have been suggestions that when burned it can produce volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contaminate the air. It’s claimed that these chemicals, which include acetone and benzine, are carcinogenic and have been linked to health conditions such as asthma and psoriasis.

However, these claims are largely unsubstantiated and based on research that was not peer reviewed. There have since been studies that suggest that any chemicals produced by burning paraffin candles are well under levels that would be required to cause health concerns in humans.

There have also been concerns raised about wick material. In the past lead was used as the core of candle wicks, which released toxic chemicals when burned. Although many websites and magazine articles still warn about lead wicks, the truth is they are no longer used in the USA or EU. Where metal cores are used zinc or tin is used instead.

It is true that synthetic chemical fragrances used in some candles can release trace amounts of chemicals into the atmosphere such as formaldehyde. Even so, there have not been any concrete connections between the release of these chemicals and any health conditions. It’s thought that any chemicals released are in such small quantities that they couldn’t cause any harm.

What is the cleanest burning candle wax?

If you’d rather avoid paraffin candles, there are natural alternatives that don’t have any of the associated chemical by-products. Candles made from beeswax burn cleanly. Vegetable or soy based waxes also don’t contain any substances that could be toxic.

Choose candles that are fragranced using only essential oils, rather than artificially created chemical scents, and look for wicks made from 100% cotton.

Until we know for certain if there are links between the burning of paraffin wax and health conditions it’s understandable to want to buy from companies that are committed to being transparent about their ingredients and commitment to ecological sustainability.

What are the best non toxic candles?

If you’re set on avoiding any chance of toxicity by opting for completely natural candles you’ll probably have to look to more specialized brands.

Whereas Yankee Candles use exclusively cotton wicks and boast that they use essential oils in their products, they do not use exclusively essential oils. They are used alongside fragrance oils, chemically created rather than naturally occurring fragrance. Their candles are also made from a refined paraffin wax. Similarly, while Bath and Body Works claim their candles are “made with essential oils” this does not mean they are made exclusively with essential oils. Although their candles are made with vegetable and soy wax, this is blended with paraffin.

So what are the healthiest candles? If you’d rather stick to candles made from completely natural ingredients you should give these brands a try:

Boy Smells candles are hand made exclusively from beeswax and coconut. They produce a variety of full-bodied playful scents and are committed to to natural ingredients and sustainable practices.

Mrs Meyers Clean Day is a range of ‘clean’, natural, eco-friendly household products. Their scented candles are made from soy wax in keeping with the company ethos, and come in a range of distinct, potent scents, such as their punchy Basil Scented candle.

Pure Calm Wellness Candle from UMA is inspired by aromatherapy. Made entirely from soy wax and scented using essential oils of lavender, rose, and sandalwood it is designed to be clean burning and calming.

Hopefully this will have given you some insight into which kind of scented candles are right for you and inspired you to take the plunge and try some out.