Other delightful odours to encourage you back into the office after the pandemic include “room 12F.1 after a six-hour workshop” and “breakfast leftovers in edit suite 1”. If you found yourself craving a “warm 96-page deck left on the printer” and the “afternoon rush at the coffee bar” during lockdown, then you’re not alone: these are two of the most popular scents produced by Eau d’Office. “Smell has a very powerful ability to evoke our memories or our connections to other people and places, whether that’s relatives or a holiday we have fond memories of, particularly places in our childhood,” said William Tullett, an associate professor in sensory history at Anglia Ruskin University.Įau d’Office’s Thursday Happy Hour on a High Table candle. Scent is known to be strongly associated with memory, which explains the popularity of candles scented like British seaside destinations, favourite foods, or the office or the gym during lockdown. “We’re trying to create our own imaginary trip, we’re redefining our home invisibly,” she said. Traditionally, home fragrance has sought to bring the outside in – for instance, dried flower potpourri in the 18th century – to conjure exotic places or remind us of comforting memories, exemplified in the popularity of library-scented candles. Composite: Goop & NetflixĪcademic experts in scent said the pandemic had placed a renewed focus on sense of smell due to anosmia from Covid and airborne transmission, combined with the influence on modern culture of ideas from medieval and Victorian medicine around the healing properties of fresh or scented air: for example, burning rosemary to ward off the plague or being prescribed seaside air.Ĭecilia Bembibre, a researcher specialising in the heritage of smells at UCL, said that scented candles also reminded people of places they loved but couldn’t access. Gwyneth Paltrow caused a stir when her company Goop produced a £75 candle named This Smells Like My Vagina. “When I work for Zara, I don’t change the way I work … If you blind-burned I don’t think you would be able to tell between most of them.” Malone, who has collaborated with Zara on a £15 candle range, said although budget candles didn’t use the most expensive essential oils, many cheaper ranges drew on the same skill and expertise as their pricier counterparts. It’s amazing now: you go into supermarkets or anywhere and you can find a scented candle from £5 up,” she said. “When scented candles were first around they were high-end luxury.

Jo Malone, the perfumer whose name has become synonymous with fragrance, said the main change she had observed over her years in the industry was that good quality scented candles had become much more affordable. John Lewis reported that sales have risen by 5% each year since 2020, when they jumped by 12%, with particular recent interest on cheaper ranges, including own-brand candles. Figures from the data analysts Kantar show that between March 20, UK consumers spent £418m on scented candles.

Candle wax