This Fancy Candle Makes Every Place I Live Feel Like Home

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Growing up in the South, I assumed — dare I say knew — that grownup me would be the very definition of settled. I’d have decent furniture, a closet filled with nice clothes, and candles on every available surface. And of course, there would be the house that held it all.

Ten years later, I have the exact opposite of all the things I thought I wanted. I have a few drawers filled with cotton T-shirts from Gap instead of those expensive clothes, and a scratched-to-hell white desk from Ikea in lieu of fancy furniture. There is no house to hold it all, just a beautiful, intensely yellow studio apartment perched above a garage.

But there is a candle. Specifically, the Large Embossed Glass Jar Candle from Voluspa in Mokara.

With notes of mokara orchid, white lily, and spring moss, it smells clean without invoking the memory of a laundry room. It’s so subtle that I like to imagine the fine people over at Voluspa sat around and asked themselves, “What does natural light smell like?” before creating it.

I've brought this candle to every place I've ever lived over the course of my adult life: tiny, overpriced apartments in New York City, a spacious-yet-bland townhouse in Florida, and a borrowed studio in Louisiana. No bed frame, no dish set, no mood board covered with inspiring phrases and outrageous outfits has survived a move. This candle has. It’s staved off many existential crises about not owning a house yet by helping me make a home wherever I am. And at just $26, it’s way less than a mortgage payment.

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