Vanilla Woods Luxury Soy Candle | 400g Hand-Blown Glass Vessel

There is a particular hour in a west-facing room when the light turns amber and everything in it softens. Vanilla Woods was poured for that hour — a 400g candle in hand-blown glass, made to be lit early and left to fill the room slowly.

This is vanilla with the bakery taken out of it. The opening is fresh rather than sweet — bergamot with lavender behind it, herbal and clean, nothing like what the name leads you to expect. Underneath that the fragrance is mostly wood and earth: patchouli giving it depth, sandalwood turning creamy against it, a little rose and jasmine smoothing the edges without ever reading as floral. The vanilla arrives last and slowly, soft and almost powdery, with musk and amber around it. It doesn't sweeten the woods so much as round them off. What is left in the room an hour later is warm and low and faintly resinous — the comfort of vanilla without any of the sugar, which is a harder thing to find than it sounds.

“The scent of vanilla and sandalwood together is divine! The hand blown vintage tumbler is beautiful and something I can keep after the candle is finished. I made the purchase at the Paddington Markets and met Joanne, she was absolutely lovely to deal with.”

Skye Davis — on Vanilla Woods

Where it works

Joanne, who has spent eighteen years designing interiors, would put this in the corner of a living room — the one with textured throws and natural materials, where a candle is the finishing layer rather than the feature. It sits particularly well against linen, stone and timber, and in a neutral palette the light through the hand-blown glass does as much work as the fragrance. A bedside table is the other place it belongs: 400g on a single wick is the right size for a bedroom, and the scent settles into the room rather than announcing itself. In a very small bathroom or a compact hallway the earthy base will build up faster than you want it to. Under a high ceiling, or across an open-plan kitchen and living area, one wick won't hold the space — that is what the 1kg double wick is for.

The vessel

Every JJ Design vessel is hand-blown, so no two are the same. The 400g stands around 10.5 cm tall and 9.5 cm across, but those figures move a little from piece to piece — small variations in height, wall thickness and the set of the rim are a consequence of the method rather than a flaw in it. The candle that arrives will not be identical to the one photographed here. When the wax is finished, the glass stays.

Sixty hours of burn time works out to twenty or thirty evenings, depending on how long you leave it going — which makes this a candle for someone who lights one most nights rather than for occasions. It suits people who love vanilla and people who usually find it too sweet, which is an unusual thing for one fragrance to manage.

Details

• Size: 400g
• Burn time: approximately 60 hours
• Dimensions: approximately 10.5 cm high, 9.5 cm diameter — each vessel is hand-blown, so dimensions vary slightly
• Top notes: bergamot, aromatic lavender
• Middle notes: patchouli, jasmine, rose, violet woods
• Base notes: vanilla, sandalwood, soft musk, warm amber
• Wax: 100% natural soy
• Wick: single
• Vessel: hand-blown glass, reusable
• Designed and poured by Joanne Johnson Design

Caring for your candle

• The first burn matters most. Let the wax melt all the way to the edge of the glass before you put it out — usually two to four hours, depending on the size. A candle remembers its first burn. Stop it early and it will tunnel, and keep tunnelling for the rest of its life.
• Trim the wick to 5 mm before every burn. An untrimmed wick smokes, flickers and marks the glass. A trimmed one burns clean.
• Burn for no more than four hours at a time. Beyond that the wax overheats and the fragrance flattens.
• Keep it out of a draught. Moving air makes the flame lean, and a leaning flame is what causes uneven burning and soot on the glass.
• Stop when about 10 mm of wax remains. Below that the vessel gets too hot to be safe.
• Then keep the vessel. Wash it out with warm soapy water and use it for something else. Each one is hand-blown, so no two are alike — it will outlast the candle by years.