Please help me understand - why are scented candles SO expensive?

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Just that really. I’ve been sent an ad from an ordinary brand advertising their new scented candle. Standard size, £75.

i mean, do these companies not know what else I could buy with £75?

Just seems a lot.

I started making my own due to the cost. I can make a scented candle for £4. They are gorgeous.

I understand that the ingredients are heavy to transport etc. but still.

Who is buying them? (Me, if they were just a bit cheaper)

It's like anything - there's a scale of affordability. You can also buy candles for a couple of quid.

Expensive candles have become something of a status symbol, and especially for gifting.

The Jo Malone dupes at Aldi are £3.49 and they're amazing. They're cheap enough I can afford to practically have one burning at all times 😆. I treat myself to a nicer candle at xmas time though

Because there are always people with more money than sense.

I used to run a candle business. We weren’t charging £75 per candle but the costs do add up if you’re making high quality candles. Anyone can melt some wax and add fragrance oil but you need a fair bit to get a good hot and cold throw plus different fragrance oils behave differently. So you would need to be doing weeks or months of testing to perfect your recipe for each different scent you offer.
I gave it up in the end because the margins were just too small. Even buying glasses, wax, fragrance oil etc wholesale is still very expensive. Plus shipping costs. It used to cost me a fortune to ship the finished product to my stockists.

Because people will pay that much

They probably have slightly better quality ingredients but the profit margin is still astronomical. The product itself costs peanuts to make but they do spend a lot on marketing.

Same goes for lots of luxury goods really. Makeup is just oil and minerals mixed together and you buy a few grams at a time, it's probably more expensive than heroin!

A decent scented candle will have a high concentration of perfume running through all of the wax and will usually come in a beautiful jar. The cheaper ones are often just sprayed on the top so after a short while they don't smell of anything.

Expensive candles are still over priced but you do get a better quality and ultimately they're a luxury item like any other. Part of the reason they make great gifts, whether for others or yourself, is that they're expensive. For me a beautiful scented candle massively lifts my spirits on dark winter evenings. I'd rather spend the money on the candle than, say, a beauty treatment or a meal out. Just my preference though!

I absolutely loathe winter and find that a nice candle makes it a tiny bit more bearable. Don't spend £75 though, more like £20 - £25 (Pott and Beauty Pie). The Pott ones are refillable so you're not paying for the container each time.

I was just going to say how nice the Aldi ones are!
Not only that, I had an actual Jo Malone candle ( only the once) and was really underwhelmed - it wasn't longlasting, and the smell was so subtle as to be barely noticeable.
Sadly, Aldi don't seem to be selling my favourites anymore ( No 4 and No 11).

Try TK Maxx 😉

Same. But smaller scale here. The profit was minimal in the end. Glass jars, good oils, wax, wicks, glue spots, business self adhesive labels, decoration (berries at Xmas, ribbon, twine, etc). Wholesale upped their prices for everything so i stopped selling them. I make for myself only now.

The only candle worth the money in my opinion is Diptique Feu de Bois . It's utterly gorgeous but I can't really afford it! I eek it out to one every 6 months.

It's better to buy an expensive one you love than try to emulate it with rubbish ones. I've wasted loads on Beauty Pie candles all of which have been dreadful.

Well these are posh candles for posh people with posh houses. There are plenty of other options in between. They have got fantastic candles on the tk maxx website with a massive discount. I have just treated myself to NEOM christmas wish one that was so much cheaper and have purchased 3 candles for gifts by Stoneglow ?? Not sure if any good but got them for the gifts and original price is about 23 pounds and I got them for 8.99 each . Honestly try tk maxx website they got great things on there.

Supply and demand innit

In 2003 a Diptyque candle was £27. The cost is burned into my brain because my editor salary was £24k. I could afford one every few months as a treat.

The candle is now £56 and the same job would pay £28k.

I'm an outlier, I don't like scented candles at all, they give me a headache. I use led tealights and pillar candles around the place instead.

I keep being gifted the bloody things, so I now have about 25 in boxes. I do re gift occasionally, but I forget who gave me what, so am half afraid to most of the time!

Muji does a really good Feu de bois tin candle for less than £10, it's my go to candle in the winter!
Their Myrrh is also great, not as good as Dyptique's but also not the same price!

I buy some expensive ones from a brand I love but they last really well. Once you've melted the top, blow it out and the scent keeps going
So you only need to burn it for maybe 30-45 mins which makes it more cost effective
The scents are amazing from the brand too

On the cheaper side I also use wax melts

They're literally for people who want to signal that they've got money to burn.

Capitalism 101: retail price has nothing to do with the price of production.

TK Maxx Villa Hermanos are amazing

I do occasionally raid TK Maxx but I also love the Ikea candles, especially the vanilla icecream scent, and they cost peanuts.

The essential oils are really expensive, but you can buy them and make your own, when I've tried you do need a lot of the oils to get a decent amount of scent.

I love diptyque candles..but..i usually gift them at xmas rather than buy myself.