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10 best travel candles
Whether it's on holiday or a work trip, take your favourite scent wherever you go
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Your support makes all the difference.Thanks to companies making mini, sturdily-packaged versions of their standard candles, you can now take your favourite scent wherever you go. Perfect for setting the mood on a romantic getaway or just to make you feel more at home on a work trip.
1. Lily Flame tinned candle in Coconut Grove: £8.95, Lily Flame
This independent, Somerset-based company claims to be the very first to make candles in tins – the first travel candles. This coconut-scented number comes in a lightweight tin, burns for 30 hours and smells like a tropical beach. If that doesn't appeal, the Verbena one smells great too.
2. Feu de Beaumont The T-Light Gift Set: £45, Feu de Beaumont
This luxury set contains five candles in wild fig, jasmine, oudh, verbena and feu de bois (a woody, masculine scent). They last longer than your average tea-light, at 10 hours each, so you only need one to give a sense of decadence to a weekend away.
3. Diptyque scented candle in Tubereuse: £20, Liberty
While not marketed as a travel candle, this neat little boxed gem does the job well. The sophisticated, floral scent is the brand’s bestselling fragrance and fills the whole room – it’s quite a complex aroma so it doesn’t fall into the background as much as simpler scents.
4. Wick & Tallow Lily & Lilac: £18, Wick & Tallow
This compact candle comprises notes of bergamot, carnation, hyacinth, white rose, lily, lilac, sandalwood and vetyver. It smells like an English garden in summer, with some muskier notes giving complexity. It provides up to 22 hours’ burn time.
5. Jo Malone Travel Candle in Pomegranate Noir: £22, Jo Malone
From the queen of candles, Jo Malone, comes this fresh, sensual scent, combining pomegranate with lily and smoky guaiac wood. The small but mighty candle weighs 60g, offering 18 hours’ burn time.
6. Neom Organics Travel Candle in Happiness: £16, John Lewis
Natural wax and pure essential oils combine here, offering an even scent that fills the whole room but isn’t overpowering. The white neroli, mimosa and lemon bring to mind fresh laundry on a summer’s day. These comparably hefty candles weigh 75g, offering 20 hours of burn time, enough for a long holiday.
7. Daylesford medium Vine Tomato: £21, Daylesford
This robust candle comes in a Kilner jar to stop seepage and protect it from the elements, so it’s ideal for picnics and day trips to the beach. The tomato smell is surprisingly realistic – they’ve even captured the smell of green vines grown in hot greenhouses. Burn time of 22 hours.
8. Beefayre scented tealights in Bee Garden: £7.50, Beefayre
Here’s a slim-boxed kit of three tea lights, which is great if your baggae allowance is on the tight side. The subtly pervasive scent of bluebell and wood anemone is calming after a stressful flight. Each 30g candle burns for eight hours and three per cent of profits go towards bee conservation.
9. Molton Brown Garden Bloom Mini Candle Collection: £42, Molton Brown
This colourful collection of four miniatures includes some of Molton Brown’s best-selling scents, including ylang ylang and orange and bergamot. Burn one on its own or, like a pick ‘n’ mix of smells, burn two or three of them together. Eight hours’ burn time per candle.
10. Cowshed invigorating travel candles in Wild Cow: £26, Cowshed
Beauty brand Cowshed’s new scent for spring is Wild Cow, and this travel box is like a gateway drug to the fragrance. It comprises four mini candles, which emanate the exotic, citrussy smell of lemongrass, ginger and rosemary. Once lit, they give off a beautifully fresh and invigorating odour. 10 hours’ burn time per candle.
Verdict
We particularly enjoyed Lily Flame's candle. It smells beautiful and, with 30 hours' burn time for less than a tenner, it's fantastic value for money.