Luxury candles - are they worth the money?
Luxury candles, bargain candles, scented candles and dinner candles - candles in all their forms are increasingly popular in the UK. From the local supermarket, to small artisan producers, to high-end design houses, you can buy a candle in any style and at almost any price point you can imagine. You can pick up a scented candle at a high street discounter for a fiver or you can head to an Italian design house and for a couple of thousand pounds, get yourself a luxury candle. But, what’s the difference? What makes a luxury candle a luxury candle?
So, what makes for a luxury candle?
As you’d expect, there are myriad factors that make for a luxury candle. Some things are easy to define and calculate the value they add to luxury candles, while others are more intangible, and vary in value from person to person, depending on what’s important to you.
Luxury candles are made with quality ingredients.
The most obvious, and the most tangible, aspect of luxury candles is the ingredients they’re made of. A cheap candle will be made with cheap ingredients. A luxury candle will likely be made with better quality ingredients that, by necessity, cost more.
Cheap candles are made with paraffin wax, which is derived from petroleum, coal, or shale oil. When paraffin wax was invented in 1830, it was a cheaper and cleaner alternative to tallow wax, which, though natural, was smelly and smokey. Nowadays many types of natural wax, which are not toxic like paraffin wax, are available. These natural waxes, including coconut wax, rapeseed wax, and beeswax, give smoke-free burns and are much more sustainably produced and clean than paraffin.
A luxury candle will impact a whole room
What sets luxury candles apart from their cheaper counterparts usually becomes obvious the moment you light them. While a cheap candle might smell nice and the scent might seem strong when you sniff the pot, they often fail to scent a whole room, or even smell like they promise to.
Luxury candles are made with high quality oils. Whether they use fragrance oils, botanical oils or essential oils, they select the best ones to create a scent that truly smells like it should.
Luxury candles scent a whole room. When you step into a room, you should immediately be able to smell the scent, even if it’s a subtly scented candle. There are a few things that ensure a good scent “throw”. Apart from using the right wick and being poured and cured well, it’s the quality of the oils that are used, as well as ensuring the maximum quantity of oils are blended with the wax.
One of the artisan potters we work with, Anna Jones, and a hand-crafted ceramic candle pot.
A truly luxury candle is the result of skill and craft
It’s not just the ingredients that set luxury candles apart, it’s also the skill that goes into designing and making them.
Luxury candles are made with carefully crafted scent blends, that are designed to help curate atmospheres and positively impact well being. Whether it’s made by a skilled artisan producer, using powerful aromatherapeutic principles, or crafted by a perfumier at a design house carefully layering scent notes, a luxury candle is made with skill and expertise.
It’s this skill in selecting, blending and balancing scents that makes a luxury scented candle so powerful.
Our Aromatherapy range of candles, Rest, Calm, Heal, and Restore, are each crafted to specifically nurture well being. Each one is packed with powerful essential oils, but also balanced to create an atmosphere that will support well being, not to mention filling the room with a lovely smell at the same time.
And take our Signature range; Home, New Home, and Hearth & Home. Each of these three unique scents is designed to help curate that feeling of home. Perfect whether you’ve just moved somewhere new and need to settle in, or you’re away and yearning for familiar smells. Or, maybe you’ve got friends round and just want to create a cosy, welcoming atmosphere. We’ve taken scents that each conjure up something of that feeling of home and carefully layered and blended them to create three distinct scents.
Luxury candles celebrate design and craftsmanship
Luxury candles are not only identifiable by their scents, but also by their containers. A cheap candle can come in a pot made by the million on a factory line. The design and quality of the pot is often what first catches your eye and there are some absolutely stunning luxury candles available.
Mass production makes for affordable, easily replicable products. Which, when it comes to accessibility, is great - if something can be made quickly and easily, it means more people can buy it.
But, real craft and unique design takes time. When you’re looking for luxury candles, you can find beautiful containers, made by artisan producers, that are works of art in their own right. From hand-blown glass jars, to hand thrown ceramic pots, and hand cast concrete, the range of candle containers is wide. This artisan approach to production makes for unique designs - made by techniques, skills and materials that are impossible to reproduce en masse.
Here at GHFS we are passionate about supporting artisan craftsmanship and work with potters across the UK to produce each and every one of our refillable candles, match pots and tealight holders.
Luxury is not for the everyday
These handcrafted pieces that can only be made in small batches are, by nature, that bit more exclusive. That, for some, is part of the appeal. Luxury is, by definition, not for the everyday. It’s special. The fact that you don’t use it everyday, or not everyone has one, adds to the exclusivity, and the luxury experience.
A luxury candle is not just a candle
Finally, buying a luxury candle is a luxury experience. From the details in the packaging, to a more personalised service, luxury brands pay attention to the details.
We love being able to offer that personal service here at Great House Farm Stores, offering advice on scents and candle care, or even helping to select a gift. We also offer a gift-wrapping service and a complimentary handwritten gift note with any purchase. Oh, and we make sure all our candles are packaged perfectly, wrapped in tissue, and housed in hand-stamped boxes.
Explore our luxury candles here.