What’s the Next Status Candle?

“Conceived beyond the gender binary,” Boy Smells is a two-year-old brand out of Los Angeles. It’s a small company — its two founders, a couple, started mixing the candles in their home and still run the company out of it — and it’s extremely new-guard, what with the pale pink packaging and the fact that boy smells are usually not pleasant smells (irony!). None of which should distract from the fact that these candles also smell really good in unassuming ways. (I can personally attest to this: I discovered the brand in a beautiful shop in my neck of Brooklyn, and bought the ST. AL. candle, with a scent of sandalwood, clay, and oud. I light it almost every night.)

Boy Smells comes recommended from, among others, Ted Vadakan, founder of the Los Angeles shop Poketo. When I reached out to the Sydell Group, which runs stylish properties like the Line Hotels and the Freehands, they directed me to Vadakan, as there’s a Poketo in the lobby of the Line in L.A. Poketo has carried Boy Smells from the beginning, when the latter’s founders were peddling their new wares and showed up at Vadakan’s shop. “I think so many candle lines are steered toward a more feminine point of view,” Vadakan says. “With Boy Smells, it’s definitely for both men and women.” His favorite scent is the Cedar Stack, which smells like sawdust but also like labdanum, a floral resin. On the East Coast, jewelry and bag designer Susan Alexandra says she loves Boy Smells’ Ash candle, which she found at the shop Mott NYC. “I walked in and I was like, ‘What’s happening here?’ and they were like, ‘Oh, it’s Boy Smells,’” she says. Creatures of Comfort also burns them.

But an incredible aroma isn’t quite enough to confer haute status. So I reached out to Lisa Says Gah, an online shop that sells brands like Maryam Nassir Zadeh and Paloma Wool, to ask why Boy Smells is the only candle they carry. “So many reasons,” said Lisa’s buyer Gabriela Pelletier. The unique scents for one, plus the Lisa team really likes the Boy Smells founders. But crucially, a Boy Smells candle is a notable object on its own. “Diptyque is really known for their branding,” Pelletier says. “So is Boy Smells. It’s a pink label and a perfect font. You can recognize it as soon as you see it. It’s similar to a really prominent shoe brand: You know how women recognize each other’s shoes? Any woman can always recognize a Maryam Nassir Zadeh shoe. You don’t even have to be up close.” It’s a signal, a code, if you know how to read it.

This sampler kit of Kush, Ash, and Cedar Stack votives is great for a gift, or for yourself if you simply don’t know which one to start with.

Another small company, this time from Brooklyn. Anna Polonsky of the MP Shift, the New York design studio that’s done interiors for the restaurant De Maria and graphics for Ferris, recommends them. She pointed out that Keap’s candles can be found in notable restaurants around town, such as Cosme, Mettā, and June Wine Bar. “This is a super smart candle company — much more sustainable, natural, and affordable than most big brands,” she says. “Good company to support.” As for the sustainability Polonsky mentions, Keap uses coconut and soy wax. No paraffin and no metal or lead in the wicks. The newer scent profiles are more evocative of experiences than of objects: Hot Springs contains cedar leaves, cypress, and orange blossoms; Green Market has basil, cilantro, and fig leaves.

If you want your Status Candle to be extra-clean, CAP Beauty co-owner Cindy DiPrima recommends The Sphinx and the Priestess. “We are really limited in what candles we can sell,” she says. “Our definition of all-natural means candles that contain no synthetics, and candles that are soy-based. But if the fragrance is synthetic it won’t work.” These candles use botanical essential oils for fragrance. The Sphinx line also mixes well with the ethos at CAP (which carries Moon Juice products) partly because each one has a crystal buried in its wax. “They have a deep study of witchy practices,” DiPrima says of the makers. “They make candles during certain moon cycles.”

“You definitely should be up on Burnin’ For You,” Susan Alexandra says. “Nothing she” — the brand’s founder — “makes is normal; the candles are based on these visions she has, so she’ll be trying to evoke the desert at midnight or a disco in the ’70s.” Prop stylist Kalen Kaminski, who works with plenty of clients but whom I found through Alison Roman, also recommends these.

In keeping with the experiential trend, Otherland names its candles after things — in this case, things you might sit on, or see at a vacation house, like Daybed (peony and summer greens) or Rattan (sandalwood, moss). Kaminski called the packaging “Matisse-like,” which is totally true. Otherland recently created a custom candle for The Wing, with an of-the-moment terrazzo print on the packaging, and we take that as a solid co-sign that this candle is worth knowing.

Polonsky also pointed out that in the realm of luxurious candles, few beat Cire Trudon: “Anything coming from Ramdane” Touhami, the skateboarder turned artist and designer who rebranded Cire Trudon in addition to Buly 1803 and Carrière Frères, “is very ‘status’-friendly for sure.” “Beautiful glass jar, too.” Also, French. And, at $95, these candles have a mix of old world aromas (burning bushes, floral leather) and newfangled ones (mimosas). People go apeshit for these candles.

I also asked Wendy Goodman, New York’s design editor and the person with the most unfettered access to the most sensational homes, about candles. Fresh off a visit to the home of Zac Posen and Christopher Niquet (“the arbiters of all things glorious and delicious from fashion to food to scent,” Wendy says), she said it had smelled incredible. She asked why, and besides burning incense and freshening with Frédéric Malle’s Cafe Society spray, Posen and Niquet burn candles from Régime des Fleurs. These include notes of things I’ve never even heard of (elemi, olibanum, shiso) and, at $100, cost the most out of everything on this list. The candles shown here are painted by Voutsa, which is especially extra.

The brand is a classic for a reason, and even its newer competitors recognize its stature. An Instagram post by Boy Smells, in which their own candles mingle with ones from Diptyque and Byredo, refers to the former brand as “the elder statesmen of candles.” Back to the royal wedding: If you want to know which ones were used, sorry. “The brand is unable to reveal the exact fragrances they supplied,” according to Harper’s Bazaar. But Baies is the longstanding best-seller, so you can always go classic.

There’s also a middle-ground option: peruse Diptyque’s many woody and herbal candles. No matter what, Diptyque’s take on these scents will be more like perfume than that of other brands. (Visit the store if you don’t believe me.) These won’t smell quite like upstate, or Sour Diesel. But patchouli or oud might get you close enough.