Scents and sensibility: the truth about fragrant candles

They’re the ultimate luxury and a go-to gift but could this bougie parfumée be doing us harm? Katie Rosseinsky asks the experts whether we should blow them out for good

- Katie Rosseinsky

There are few sensations more instantly soothing than lighting a scented candle. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve chosen a highend brand or a £4 supermarket dupe with suspiciously similar packaging: this simple act can soften the edges of the most stressful days (and make you feel like you just about have your life together at the same time).

Simply ignite the wick, watch the flame flicker to life, then let your fragrance of choice waft through the room while feeling equal parts smug and sophisticated. Extra points if the scent is designed to evoke some hyper-niche experience, like flicking through old tomes in a vintage bookshop, walking into a bakery on a sunny morning, or perusing a specific flower market at dusk.

For better or worse, they’ve become a shortcut to self-care and a quick fix for our frazzled nerves (plus, they’re the perfect prop for an artful social media post, which certainly hasn’t harmed their popularity). No wonder, then, that these delicately fragranced status symbols have become big business. Between 2021 and 2022, UK shoppers spent £418m on scented candles, according to data analysts at Kantar, and over the next decade, the global market is predicted to rise from almost $4bn to $6.1bn (£4bn). As far as guilty pleasures go, they might seem pretty harmless, bar the staggering price tag that comes attached to some of the fanciest offerings, of course. But do we need to take a closer, more critical look at what exactly it is that we’re burning?