The cat is out of the bag, two new scents have come to enlarge our Carrément Belle collection of scented candles. The fragrance so and vanille have joined ippi patchouli and ïōdé, and we took the opportunity to redesign their glass jars in order to make them true decorative objects. This project has shown up a few years ago now. We take you behind the scenes in our workshop to tell you all about it…
Why and how to create our scented candles?
Scented candles offer a complementary way to body perfumes to enjoy your fragrance. This is why we decided in 2014 to embrace this perfumed adventure. It must also be said that you have been asking us for some time already to enjoy your favorite perfumes at home. To get to know and work this product, we started with a single scent. Slowly but surely.
Naturally, our iconic ippi patchouli fragrance has been chosen. A perfume appreciated by our community for more than 30 years, whose woody and earthy scent served as guinea pig. The enthusiasm generated by its launch and your positive feedbacks quickly encouraged us to offer a second scented candle fragrance. We have then reworked ïōdé‘s formula to bring an invigorating sea breeze to your home, and extend your holidays at the seaside all year long…
Since 2014, we have thought several times to create new candles, but different projects came one after another and we hesitated on the fragrances to select. So we asked our faithful retailers and our community to help us. The idea was to create two new scented candles to make the choice even more difficult for you… and especially to offer to each room of the house a different perfume!
Amber and vanilla: new scents, new temptations
Since 1988, we have created many fragrances but do not ask us what our favorites are! That is all the beauty of our job: perfume is subjective and hits us for personal reasons. So how to choose the scents of our new scented candles? Listening to you, we should decline all our fragrances! But we want to self-finance our projects and prefer to take our time to create products in a thoughtful and responsible way. Thanks to your wise feedbacks, and after much debates, we finally opted for the fragrances vanille and the amber so!
Vanille is a true sweetness, perfect for the kitchen: a perfume made of Madagascar vanilla with notes of toasted almonds and creamy caramel. A regressive scent that carries us back to childhood memories. SO is a completely different fragrance. Putting amber in the spotlight, it is a very sensual and spicy scent. Perfect to warm up the cool winter nights… This collection of scented candles is therefore thought to suit all the noses and stick to your desires whatever the season or the moment.
Time to get our hands waxy
Once the perfumes validated, the work begins to give life to our inspirations! We would think that it is quick to transform a body perfume into a scented candle when the formula already exists. But that is the opposite! With a candle, the perfume is diffused by combustion. A technique very different from the vaporization of an eau de parfum for example. It is necessary to adapt the formula, because the combustion and the mixture with the wax will have an impact on the olfactory result. Several tests with our perfumer were necessary to adapt the formula. To understand this process, we will soon propose you an interview of Laurent, our perfumer who worked with us on the vanille scented candle.
Once we were satisfied by the olfactory results, many other tests were made with our chandler. The perfect wax must be chosen and different wicks tested for each of the 4 scented candles. We opted for a mixture of natural and mineral waxes, as well as a 100% cotton wick!
Not forgetting the centerpiece…
This whole process has taken several years, and the tests has intensified recently. As with our body fragrances, priority has been given to the essential ingredient to us: a high-quality perfume with a high concentration! Each candle contains at least 10% perfume, to release their smell quickly and intensely in your cocoon!
The final touches
And as a novelty is a quite an event for us, we wanted to mark the occasion. That is why the whole collection has been redesigned to offer to the jars and cases a brand new decoration!
Since 1988, our philosophy is to choose transparent bottles or jars to highlight what they contain: juice for perfumes, wax for candles. We do not use dyes to appreciate the evolution over time of these materials! For the first candles made in 2014, we sticked to our minimalist identity. Several wise feedbacks from our retailers but also our customers suggested us to change our habits and make our candles more decorative. As we are never closed to inspired ideas and we encouraged our customers from the beginning to give a second life to the jars of their candles, we decided for this new production to completely review the design of our collection!
Scented candles full of stories
Whether it is here on the scented notebook, via our olfactory letter or on our social networks, we take a real pleasure to share our passion of Perfume, with a capital P! Raw materials, history, curiosities and other anecdotes greatly enrich this olfactory culture that we share together. So, we felt inspired… The design of these new candles appeared as a white canvas on which we could tell stories of Perfume.
ippi patchouli: the journey of a mythical ingredient
For the ippi patchouli scented candle, we wanted to make you walk the path of a rainforest, to evoke the origins of patchouli. From the plant to cashmere shawls imported by boat from Indonesia to Europe, La Baigneuse offers an olfactory travel to discover this ingredient. Its patterns evoke a fragrance that is both woody and earthy, faithful to our eternal fragrance…
The open sea with ïōdé
Here, La Baigneuse quietly splashes around in the marine world of ïōdé. It is quite naturally that we chose to illustrate this olfactory wave with the Japanese motif Seigaiha. Related to water and waves, this ancestral design is also synonymous with energy and good fortune. Perfect to feel invigorated by the sea spray!
Our (secret) recipe of vanille
For vanille, we wondered how to give life to this sweetness and translate these smells of yesteryear? The design was finally imposed spontaneously by highlighting the essential: the vanilla pod, the flagship ingredient of the fragrance with warm and spicy hints. A vanilla that is gourmand thanks to caramelized almonds… The smell of a festive kitchen in a candle to consume without moderation! Can you find the pods and almonds in this decor not so abstract?
A night under the stars with so
Finally, the design of so tells you the journey of ambergris, its main ingredient. This fragment floats for a long time on the surface of the seas before being ended up on the shore. It can spend one thousand and one nights under the stars, a nod to its oriental note. A fragrance full of contrasts and shades between shadow and light! Its anise-green color, reminiscent of the juice of its perfume, reveals a fragrance as sensual as captivating…
Each of these designs are different and yet they all have one thing in common… La Baigneuse hides and lounges there waiting for you to find her!
Here we go!
This project is coming to an end, but the most important thing is beginning. It is up to you to give it meaning and we hope these candles will melt your little hearts with happiness! And if you ask us what is our favorite candle, know that the fight is fierce! The Carrément Belle team is made of 4 people and we have 4 candles. We all have a favourite so when it comes to choose the one we are going to burn in our workshop, the debate is on fire…
But that does not prevent us from making the greatest care to your perfumed orders. We are in the starting blocks to pack your candles with our delicate hands to warm up your evenings!
Are you already a fan of scented candles? Which one is your favourite?
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This is a delightful blog as well as an interesting and helpful blog about scented candles.