Best Luxury Candles for Gifting

Jo Malone London remains the most reliable gift in the category, and packaging is the reason. The cream box, the black grosgrain ribbon and the weighted lid do a great deal of work before the recipient has smelled anything. Lime Basil & Mandarin is the house signature and offends nobody.

If you want something less predictable at a similar price, a Lumond ceramic gives the recipient two gifts in one: the candle, then a hand-thrown vessel they keep afterwards. It is the better choice for anyone who already owns a shelf of glass jars.

Trudon Ernesto is the gift for a person who already knows what they like. Leather, tobacco and smoke in mouth-blown Tuscan glass with a gold crest, from a house that has been making wax since 1643. It is expensive and it looks it.

Byredo Bibliothèque is the alternative for a more modern recipient: plum, violet and leather evoking old books, in a vessel that suits a pared-back interior. Both are compositions a fragrance enthusiast will recognise as serious.

Scale matters here, because new homes tend to be under-furnished and echoey. A Baobab Collection piece works as a housewarming gift precisely because it is oversized and decorative, functioning as an object in a room that does not yet have many.

For a more practical option, Nest New York Grapefruit fills a large empty space faster than anything else at its price, which is genuinely useful in a home that still smells of paint.

Fornasetti is the answer to the person who is difficult to buy for. A hand-decorated porcelain vessel from the Milan atelier is a collectible object first and a candle second, and the empty vessels hold their value on the secondary market.

Loewe Home Scents is the other route: Tomato Leaves or Beetroot are so unlike the standard amber and vanilla gift candle that they register as a deliberate, considered choice rather than a default one.

Avoid heavy gourmand and vanilla scents unless you know the recipient likes them; they are the most polarising category in home fragrance. Avoid anything strongly floral for someone with allergies. And avoid giving a large multi-wick candle to someone in a small flat, where it will be unusable.

When in doubt, choose a fresh citrus or a light wood. Lime Basil & Mandarin, Acqua di Parma Colonia and Nest Grapefruit are all close to universally acceptable.