Candle, reed diffuser or room spray: which to use where

Most people start with a candle and stop there. It is a good place to start, but it is not the right answer for every room, and the three formats are less interchangeable than they look. The useful question is not which smells best. It is how long you need the scent to last and whether anyone will be there to light it.

Candles: for rooms you sit in

A candle is an occasion. You light it, and the room changes over the next twenty minutes as the wax pool widens. The flame is half the point: the light matters as much as the scent. That makes candles right for living rooms, dining tables and bedrooms in the evening, and wrong anywhere you cannot keep an eye on them. Reckon on three to four hours per burn and around fifty hours from a standard jar. Start with our candles if the room is one you spend time in.

Reed diffusers: for rooms you pass through

A diffuser asks nothing of you. There is no flame, nothing to remember and nothing to put out, so it works in the places a candle should not go: entrance halls, bathrooms, a landing, a downstairs loo, a study you leave for hours at a time. The scent is steadier and quieter than a candle, and it holds a low, constant level rather than building and fading. Turn the reeds every week or two to refresh it, and expect three to four months from a bottle. Our reed diffusers come in the same fragrances as the candles.

Room sprays: for the moment before

A spray is the fastest of the three and the shortest lived, which is exactly what you want half an hour before people arrive, after cooking, when a room has been shut up all day, or over linen and a sofa that has started to smell of nothing in particular. It is not a way to scent a room permanently. It is a way to reset one. A room and linen spray lives best in a cupboard near the door.

Using more than one

A house usually wants a mix: a diffuser in the hall so the entrance is consistent, candles in the rooms you actually sit in, a spray in the cupboard for the days you need it quickly. If you use the same fragrance across two formats, the house reads as one thing rather than several.