Candles are an easy way to elevate your space. Choosing the right fragrance can evoke feelings of relaxation, energy, or focus, provide the ambient lighting that’ll make any space infinitely cozier, and act as lovely decorative pieces. While you can shop for candles on all corners of the Internet, the best candles on Amazon ship to your place more quickly than most retailers and offer a surprisingly dense variety of brands.
Now, there are thousands upon thousands of scent profiles — from gourmand to herbaceous, floral to fruity, fresh to musky — that make it difficult to pinpoint your favorite ingredients. Do you prefer the woodsiness of patchouli? Subtle hints of vanilla? Perhaps the combination of apples and cinnamon turns every single day into Thanksgiving? The only way to understand your hero fragrance is to, well, try a bunch of them.
Whether you prefer gourmand notes (the edible-seeming kind, like chocolate, coffee, or almond) or floral blends that smell like a fresh bouquet, we’ve put our noses to the test. This curation of the best candles on Amazon is a mix of affordable and splurge-worthy, packaged in unique amber vessels and ceramic porcelain sculptures that will have you hitting “add to cart” before you can contemplate whether your apartment can house another candle. (Spoiler alert: it can.)
Woodwick Vanilla Bean Hourglass Candle
Crisp fall days call for Woodwick’s Vanilla Bean Candle, which has amassed over 9,000 rave reviews for its subtle (but still noticeable) scent. Its signature wood wick mimics the sounds of a crackling fire, which means that cozy nights — with a good mystery in your hand and a mug of tea at your side — just got a whole lot cozier.
Birthdate Zodiac Candle
Birthdate’s Zodiac Candle is customized right down to the day with a personalized tarot card reading, which outlines strengths, weaknesses, ruling planets, and more fun tidbits of inspiration that will lead you down a Co-Star rabbit hole. The scent of each candle is inspired by the reading, too: November 1st Scorpios will experience bergamot, cinnamon, and mahogany while on June 9th Gemini’s will be surrounded by the scent of orchid, sandalwood, and lemon.
Kobo Wild Tomato Vine Candle
Tomato girl summer can extend well past harvest season if you want it to. Case in point: Kobo’s Wild Tomato Vine Candle, a medley of herbs, clover, and greens turns your kitchen into a fragrant masterpiece of fresh sauce — even if you’re eating takeout dinner for a seventh consecutive day.
Tocca Montauk Candela
If you gravitate toward cucumber gimlets on the cocktail menu, Tocca’s Montauk Candela combination of salt air, cucumber, and seagrass will quickly become your home’s signature scent. This hand-poured candle has a burn time of up to 60 hours, plus the frosted glass vessel is ideal for upcycling into a morning iced coffee mug.
Friday Collective Wake-Up Call Candle
Morning routine: turn on your coffee machine, light Friday Collective’s three-wick Wake-Up Call Candle. Notes of coffee beans, brown sugar, and whipped vanilla kickstart your day with a boost of energy, turning your living room into the home office of a professional barista.
Paddywax Candles Apothecary Collection
Paddywax Candles’ Apothecary Collection is an upcycling dream courtesy of stunning amber vessels that can be repurposed into any trinket, from a vase to makeup brush storage. This soy-blend wax comes in unique, smoky scents reminiscent of woodsy campfires, thanks to combinations such as Tobacco & Patchouli, Amber & Smoke, and Teak & Tobacco.
Yankee Candle Red Apple Wreath
Notorious for its variety of scents, Yankee Candle has plenty of signature holiday favorites — but Red Apple Wreath remains the golden standard. This blend of sweet apples, cinnamon, walnuts, and maple envelopes your home and tricks your brain into thinking that a made-from-scratch pie is baking in the oven. Now, excuse us while we DoorDash a pie.
Mrs. Meyer’s Soy Candle
Mrs. Meyer’s Soy Candle is the perfect way to end a deep-cleaning session around your home. There is nothing more satisfying than placing this candle on your kitchen countertop, lighting a match, and allowing the decadent basil scent to burn whilst you sit on your sofa and watch a cozy romantic comedy.
DW Home Lavender Chamomile
Relaxation is embodied withiny DW Home’s Large Double Wick Candle in the Lavender Chamomile scent, which brings together a soothing combination of bergamot and wild musk — and thus differentiates this blend from other lavender scents on the market. The double-wick design encourages a smooth, even burn, so you can enjoy every last moment of this candle.
Volupsa Baltic Amber Candle
Volupsa’s Baltic Amber Candle gets rid of something we refer to as “candle guilt,” i.e. never lighting your candle for fear that you will waste it. Why? This hand-poured coconut wax blend actually has a burn time of up to 100 hours, which means this amber, sandalwood, and vanilla orchid scent will last an exorbitant amount of time — even if you burn it daily.
Malin + Goetz Votive Candle
Malin + Goetz Votive Candles come in a variety of unique fragrances, ideal for sensitive noses that detest anything overly fruity, sweet, or floral. Instead, opt for the likes of Dark Rum, Leather, Cannabis, or Tomato, the latter of which pulls basil, tomato, and mint notes to transform your kitchen into a sprawling herb garden.
Jonathan Adler Ceramic Candle
Jonathan Adler Women’s Muse Noir Ceramic Candle is basically a work of art because of its sophisticated porcelain vessel etched with elegant faces filled with rich black wax. Not only will this stunning piece of decor rest beautifully upon a dining or coffee table, but it’s also filled with notes of bergamot, black plum, amber, and vetiver) that’ll make any space feel instantly more interesting and inviting.
Kobo Crushed Mint Candle
Kobo’s Crushed Mint Candle is the fragrance equivalent of chomping into a piece of minty gum — spearmint, peppermint, and peach flowers will subtly fill your home for a fresh, clean atmosphere. The main perk of purchasing this candle? A plantable box. This seed-infused packaging can be soaked with water, and planted, and before you know it, you’ll be harvesting your very own crop of garden mint (or whatever herbs correspond with your candle of choice).
Paddywax Candles Library Collection
The smell and aura emitting from Paddywax Candles’ Library Collection is reminiscent of built-in bookshelves à la Beauty and the Beast. Soy-blend wax and cotton wicks are carefully poured into copper tins, each of which is dedicated to a literary icon such as Charles Dickens (tangerine, juniper, and clove), Jane Austen (gardenia, tuberose, and jasmine), and Oscar Wilde (cedarwood, thyme, and basil).