How to choose a candle as a gift
A candle is one of the few gifts that works for almost anyone: it is used up rather than kept, it does not need a size, and it does not sit in a drawer. The difficulty is that fragrance is personal, and you are usually choosing for someone whose taste you know only in outline. A few rules make it much easier.
Buy for their house, not their perfume
What someone wears and what they want their kitchen to smell like are rarely the same. Think about the rooms instead. A flat with a lot of light and pale furniture takes something bright and clean. A dark room with books and a rug takes something warm and smoky. You have probably been in the house; that is more information than you think.
The safe families
If you genuinely have no idea, three directions rarely go wrong. Fresh and green, which reads as clean without being soapy: Fern & Amber. Bright and citrus, which almost nobody dislikes: Salt Coast. Warm and woody, which suits an evening room: Saddle & Smoke. The scents to be careful with are the sweet and the heavily floral, which people tend to feel strongly about in one direction or the other.
Match the occasion to the size of the gesture
For a housewarming or a host, a single candle in a good box is right. For a birthday or something more considered, pairing a candle with the reed diffuser in the same fragrance gives the gift somewhere to go, and the diffuser keeps working long after the candle is finished. For someone who already burns candles constantly, a wick trimmer is the thing they have never got round to buying themselves.
Practical things worth checking
Buy something that arrives ready to give, so you are not repacking it at eleven at night. Check whether the maker will write a note and send it directly if the gift is going somewhere else. And if you are posting a candle in winter, allow a day or two at the other end for the wax to come back up to room temperature before it is lit; cold wax can set unevenly in transit and the surface may look marked until the first burn levels it out.
