I blame Paris ... "Candle Stories & Candle Deals" Newsletter Vol. 1

Greetings my candle and fragrance family!

Building the Sir Candle Man community over the past two years has been incredibly fun! I had no idea that I needed this creative outlet. You know how it is … we get stuck in our day to day jobs and forget to have hobbies be creative or just have some fun. Candles did that for me, so I want to say thank you for joining me on this journey. With that, we are taking the community-building UP a notch with this fun, valuable and informative newsletter! P.s. … there are some cool deals at the end from brands I love 👀👀👀.

My goals for this newsletter are to 1. building a thriving candle and fragrance community and 2. share cool deals that I get from candle brands (💰 who doesn’t love to save a coin wherever they can?).

Each month, I’ll share some cool candle stories (because I truly believe that the best fragrances tell stories - see story below), share fun comments I see from you on my accounts, let you know about my must have candles and share some good deals.

So with that, let’s go 🚀!

Candle Story: That time in Paris, the (imaginary) dinner party and the candle that started it all …

“So um … how did you even get into candles?” is a question i get a lot. To be honest, I stumbled into my fragrance obsession. Growing up, in Zimbabwe and South Africa, I always loved fragrance but as a grown up living in Los Angeles trying to create a dream life (still working on it lol), I wasn’t particularly invested in home fragrance until a fateful trip to Paris. This picture below shows the exact day (July 13, 2018) after my first true luxury candle purchase:

TL;DR - my friends and I flew to Paris to watch a Beyonce concert (if you’re a Bey fan, let’s chat) and to celebrate my birthday. On this specific day, my friends were shopping in a department store and I was waiting around for them. I was not in a shopping mood so I roamed around and stumbled upon a Masion Francis Kurkdjian section in the store. I started sniffing around and saw some of their beautiful candles from the corner of my eye (the silver and gold lids are nice!) and as I was smelling the candles, I got to the 1“Au 17” candle and in that INSTANT, I smelled what I could only describe as “me living in my bougie Parisian apartment that I come to once a twice a year for vacation, hosting a dinner party with well curated guest lists of artists, tech friends, family and a celeb or two in the mix, but on the terrace outside, soft lighting and maybe one too many bottles of champagne” … yes, all of those thoughts in one whiff. I had the whole story in my head. I was hooked. That was it.

For me, the best candles tell stories. Sir Candle Man was born in that moment and my mission is to curate the world’s best candles and perfumes for a global community through stories that make the world of fragrance more inclusive. That’s the origin story.

Reply and let me know if you want more of my candle imagination stories.

Community: The comments that made me LOL or THINK deeper

I LOVE spending time reading your comments. These are some of the comments and replies that really had me LOLing or going down a rabbit hole:

1. I was about to clap back but I resisted ….

Someone replied in a truly shady way to story about how excited I am (aka “shaking”) about Rihanna’s upcoming Fenty Beauty perfume:

I was about to go into defensive mode but I took a breath, counted to 10 and realized that I have showcased many a Black owned business (some faves: Stay Fresh, Harlem Candle Company, Frères Branchiaux, Dew Woods and more). In any case, please reply with any cool Black owned candle brands I should check out. But this comment … LOL!

2. Is this true about Oud?

I made a TikTok video about how the best luxury candle fragrance of all time is oud (which I still stand by) and I received this interesting comment about how most oud is synthetic these days. Is this true? I have some digging to do but wow, who knew?

Also, do you agree about oud being at the top of the pyramid of luxury fragrance notes? Reply and let me know.

Collection: My MUST HAVE CANDLE this month has lavender in it (a surprise to me too 😂)

I try a lot of candles. A LOT. I do however find myself going to back to one or two new favorites each month so I want to share a candle I consider to be a must have in every newsletter. Before I do that, it may be helpful to share what I look for in a candle: 1. a unique and balanced fragrance, 2. clean burning and 3. a quality vessel.

So what am I loving this month? Let me start by saying that I don’t know what’s happening to me. Maybe it’s that I’m getting older (I just turned 34 in July) but my nose is changing and I’m starting to like things I never thought I would like … such as lavender🤯. Like which young-ish person loves lavender? Apparently me. So .. my must have candle for August is: LAFCO - Lavender Amber. Why? Read below.

Some would say that I am basically a LAFCO stan account (which makes sense given how much I talk about LAFCO’s Feu Du Bois candle which is in my top 5 candles of all time) but I did not expect to love this candle for a number of reasons … 1. the base is vanilla, 2. I generally find lavender to be too mature (like rose) and um … 3. purple vessels? I don’t love the color purple in general (that’s a me thing). Be that as it may, this candle is TOTALLY different!

1. unique and balanced fragrance (4 out of 5) - the REAL vanilla (not synthetic) makes for a smooth and non-harsh base burn. The cold throw is not strong (which I personally like since I have so many candles in my apartment and I don’t want fragrances mixing). The lavender is mixed with eucalyptus which give a “refreshing relaxation” vs. a “sleepy relaxation” which I like.

2. clean burning (5 out of 5) - as with any candle form LAFCO, they all contain the purest ingredients and soy wax. No “bad” smoke.

3. quality vessel (4 out of 5) - the handblown glass vessels from LAFCO are top-tier. So many brands say their vessels are reusable (which is a good thing) but this one genuinely looks good and you WANT to reuse it and show it off.

Basically … you need this candle! You can buy it on LAFCO’s site, Blue Mercury and Nieman Marcus (these are not affiliate links).

Candle Deals: Two great promo codes!

1. Iconic ScentsBuy one classic 9oz and get 1 mini 3oz free with code: ICONICSIR (on their site)I LOVE Mary Ann, the founder of Iconic Scents. She was one of the first people in the fragrance world to reach out to me almost two years ago. Her candles are beautiful and smell SUPER clean. My fave is “Iconic Air”. They just launched minis so you can use the code above to get in on that mini action! And congrats to her because you can now also find them on *Saks.com (very cool … love an elevation moment)!

2. DEHV Candle Co.10% off with code: SIRCANDLEMAN10Jade, the founder of DEHV, is amazing (I’m realizing that I’m clearly just a candle brand founder fan). Why is she amazing? Jade also reached out to me early in April 2020 to let me try one of her candles. I love the eco-friendliness of the brand, the fragrances (WANDER is a good one if you like Sandalwood) and I really appreciate the concrete vessel (it’s gorgeous and can be used for plants while still looking beautiful. We love multi-purpose!). P.s. Rolling Stone included DEHV Candle Co. in their “10 Female-Powered Brands to Shop for Women’s History Month and Beyond” list AND Kourtney Kardashian loves the brand too … so there’s that.

What did you think?

As we know, feedback is a gift. Please let me know if you liked the newsletter. I tried to make it personal, fun, community-driven and useful. Any and all constructive feedback will be appreciated. You can reply back and let me know.

See you in September.

That’s it for August! Thank you for reading and see you in September :).

Stay lit! - Sir Candle Man