Now available at Aveda: the 2009 Light the Way candle. This year’s model, which honors Earth Month and the Aveda brand’s 30th anniversary, features soy wax and a “French-inspired stress-relieving aroma exclusively comprised of Ecocert certified organic ingredients, including lavender, lavandin and clary sage”.
100% of the proceeds from the candle will go to support Aveda’s Earth Month partner, Global Greengrants Fund…
I hate candles that have the sort of perfume that you might wear on your body. Our smells are different - we re-create the smell of the Mirror Gallery and the polished wooden floor of Versailles (Roi Soleil); we conjure up the fragrance of old stone walls in the shade of cloisters and convents (Carmelite); of churches (Spiritus Sancti); of freshly washed linen and swilled-down tiled floors (Manon) and of leather and tobacco in an old hotel in Havana (Ernesto).
— Ramdane Touhami of Cire Trudon, quoted by columnist Lucia van der Post in Lucia loves: scented candles at the UK Times Online. See also: Kevin's review of the Cire Trudon Mademoiselle de La Vallière candle.
My memories of India are of mornings filled with mystery and anticipation. The haunting sound of the first call to prayer from the muezzin swirling in through an open window with the pre-dawn mist, waking the peacocks who add their plaintive cry. Chants from the Sikh gurdwara follow soon, as do tendrils of rosy sweet dhoop (incense) that meld with the dung-fire smoke from the villages, as early morning puja begins. By the time morning has settled in, the mists have burned away, and the koyal birds have begun their sweet song that will continue through the rest of a day bursting with sunshine, as the green parrots in the trees resume their daily gossip and the vendors begin to make their rounds, crying out their offerings of fresh orange juice, vegetables and shoe repair. Cows come grazing along the street, sometimes stopping to inquire mildly into the goings-on of the households they pass…
On May 14, 1664, during the famous seven-day party called Les Plaisirs de l’Ile Enchantée that celebrated the inauguration of Louis XIV’s grand Versailles building project, the “scents of ambergris, rosewater and jasmine melded with the acrid fumes of gunpowder as fireworks swooped great arabesques of intertwining ‘Ls’ across the sky for Louise and her lover, King Louis XIV of France.”* Louise was Louise de La Vallière (1644-1710), the provincial, blond and blue-eyed, rather “simple” 20-year-old mistress of Louis XIV — and the inspiration for Cire Trudon’s Mademoiselle de La Vallière candle. Louise became Louis’ mistress in 1661, and she was eventually given the titles of Duchesse de Vaujours and maîtresse en titre; she bore the king four children.
The Cire Trudon candle works was founded in Paris in 1643 (just a year before the Versailles fête) and provided candles to the court of Louis XIV (and still provides candles — and candle-making expertise — to churches like the Église Saint-Roch in Paris and companies such as Hermès, Cartier, Dior, and Guerlain).
The creative force behind Cire Trudon’s perfumed candles is Ramdane Touhami who says, “Cire Trudon does not make perfumes, but creates smells”. It’s rare that I come across an entire line of perfumes, soaps, or candles and think: “I want EVERYTHING!” but that’s how I felt when I smelled the Cire Trudon line of candles at Barneys New York…
From Annick Goutal: the Les Soliflores set, with 50 ml bottles of Eau de Toilette in La Violette, Neroli, Le Jasmin, Le Chevrefeuille (Honeysuckle) and Le Muguet (Lilly of the Valley). $400 at Saks Fifth Avenue…