A Candle Made to Last a Lifetime
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."
SHOP $285, diptyqueparis.com
Welcome to The Esquire Endorsement. Heavily researched. Thoroughly vetted. These picks are the best way to spend your hard-earned cash.
I always have a candle burning in my home. Day or night, you can count on one being lit in my bedroom; sometimes, I’ll put an extra out in the living room, too. They turn a house into a home, give your space a signature aroma, look pretty, and feel cozy.
Naturally, burning candles as often as I do, I go through them pretty quickly. When I’m done with a candle, I toss it out, open a new one, light it, and repeat the cycle. I’ve been doing that for years. Hell, humans have been doing that for as long as candles have existed. Recently, though, I did something brand new. I finished a wax candle. I softened the wax with hot water and removed it from the glass candle jar with a butter knife. I threw the melted wax away, and popped a new block of candle wax—wick and all—into my glass candle jar. And I was able to do so thanks to Diptyque's newest, sustainable, refillable candle collection: Les Mondes de Diptyque.
It makes sense for candles to become refillable and recyclable, if you think about it. In the age of a climate crisis and an increasingly eco-conscious generation, sustainability is at the heart of all our daily practices. We recycle our plastics and papers, so why not our candles, too?
SHOP $285, diptyqueparis.com
Diptyque Knows the Art Of Smell
If anyone has mastered the art of smell, it’s Diptyque. Scent is the maison’s expertise. Maybe you know it's perfumes—the glass bottles stamped with an oval seal, inspired by the elongated shields of ancient Rome, each with a fancy-sounding French name. Maybe you know its scented bracelets, which went viral on TikTok a couple years ago, or its luxury candles, which smell and look better than any candle really has a right to. If you don’t know the brand at all, though, you should know one thing: Few have excelled in the field of fragrances as Diptyque has.
In 1961, Diptyque opened a concept store at 34 Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris. It was all about beauty: Beautiful displays, incorporating the founders’ love of calligraphy; beautiful scents, inspired by the arts and emotions that play on the senses; beautiful wares, from glassware to sugar holders to incense burners. The founders—artists and friends Christiane Montadre-Gautrot, Yves Coueslant, and Desmond Knox-Leet—were infamously called “merchants of nothing” in a Parisian article; but they were merchants of everything, with their peculiar little boutique as a bazaar that had a charming bits of luxury, whimsicality, and beauty—all centered around their love of perfumery.
Six decades after launching its first candle, Diptyque is still being fueled by an expression of inspiration, guided by the founders’ initial love of scent. From the eau de toilettes to the wax candles, Diptyque’s founders weave a story into every product—places they’ve traveled, people they’ve encountered, the smells of childhood and nostalgia—with all of their combined knowledge, expertise, and experience gathered through sixty years culminating in Les Mondes de Diptyque.
SHOP $285, diptyqueparis.com
These Candles Are Sustainable
Diptyque’s candle journey didn’t begin with Les Mondes de Diptyque (“The Worlds of Diptyque”). The brand has released a variety of candle collections in the past, all made in France: Classic Candles, Tapered Candles, Holiday Candles, and more. I’ve smelled them, used them, thrown them away when there was no wax nor wick left. That’s what you do when a candle is finished, right? Well…not quite, anymore.
Times are changing, and the marker of a brand that can withstand the test of time is a brand that can adapt. As a luxury scent expert, Diptyque’s Les Mondes de Diptyque collection is a testament to the heritage label’s longevity; it isn’t just about pretty, nice-smelling candles anymore. In fact, it isn’t even about candles with a history anymore; it’s about candles with a future.
Les Mondes de Diptyque is focused on sustainability. The luxury candle collection is the first of its kind to be intended to last for generations; can you imagine inheriting a candle that your grandparents used? Your grandchildren will be able to. And, hey, you’re going to pass down your luxury goods as heirlooms, so why not include candles in there, too? Every candle in Les Mondes de Diptyque comes in a thick, three-tiered glass jar, each with a different tint, all with a corresponding location of inspiration and glass lid. When the wax is burned through (which will take a while, as the burn time for each candle is 60 hours), you can melt the remainder down with hot water, remove it with a butter knife, and refill it with a new candle wax. Easy. And, even easier—Diptyque sells the refills individually, so you can try different scents, too.
SHOP $285, diptyqueparis.com
And They Look and Smell Really Good
Sustainability aside, this candle still does the job of a candle better than a regular old candle does. Each of the five scents is inspired by a different location, and uses raw ingredients related to the location to create a unique scent. My favorite is La Vallée du Temps—that is, Valley of Time, inspired by the famous city of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi, China. Jingdezhen is known for being the home of porcelain, and is also a cradle for white tea; La Vallée du Temps has notes of White tea accord, maté absolute, jasmine absolute that evoke the nature and spirit of Jingdezhen’s heritage tea producers.
I burned La Vallée du Temps for months before the wax was gone, and I’m still certain that any candle user less avid than I would be able to make this last for a year, minimum. I’ve dipped my toe into the rotation of other Les Mondes de Diptyque scents, too; there’s Temple de Mousses, or Moss Temple, inspired by a Japanese zen garden residing in a temple just outside of Kyoto; Nymphées Merveilles, or Nymphaeum of Wonders, which evokes Renaissance woods of 16th century Italy; La Forêt Rêve, or Forest Dreams, inspired by the fantastical, lush paradise of Mexican jungles; and Terres Blondes, or Golden Lands, which takes its warm, spicy, woodsy scent from the natural landscape of the American West.
When you light one of these candles, the scent fills the room it’s in. Not overwhelmingly, but not subtly, either; the aroma is a persistent, long-lasting, gentle nudge that just makes your room look, feel, and smell better. Those tinted glass jars liven up any nightstand, dresser, table, or, if you’re like me, windowsill—and seeing as how once you have one, you’ll have it forever, it’s a good thing they’re so damn pretty and timeless.
SHOP $285, diptyqueparis.com
Photography by Joe Lingeman. Prop styling by Heather Greene.
You Might Also Like
