Scents: Green Leaves · Fern · Moss · Hand-poured in: North Carolina, USA · From: $11.99 (wax melts)
This fern candle smells like the damp underside of a leaf — green and slightly bitter, with moss holding the soil-smell down and a cool, watered freshness sitting over the top of it.
It belongs to the reader whose plants have colonised the bookshelf, and to every book where somebody talks to their garden and it listens back. Like every Aarka Origins candle, it is truly handmade: hand-poured in small batches in North Carolina from 100% pure soy wax, with no paraffin and no blends.
GREEN LEAVES · FERN · MOSS
Fragrance family: Green & Botanical
Green fragrances go wrong in one of two directions: too sharp, and they read as cut stems in a florist's bin; too soft, and they vanish. This sits in the middle by keeping the moss damp rather than dry, which gives the fern a base to grow out of. It is a quiet, cool scent, and it is one of the few here that works in a bathroom or a small study. Poured by hand in North Carolina from 100% pure soy.
Cool, green, and faintly damp. The fern candle is built on crushed green leaves and wet moss rather than flowers, so it reads as a room full of plants instead of a garden in bloom.
It is the safest gift on this list for the friend with more plants than shelf space, and it holds up for readers too, since it is quiet enough to burn while you work. Wax melts from $11.99 make it easy to add to a plant-themed gift.
It is. I Bought Another House Plant is hand-poured in small batches at Aarka Origins' North Carolina shop from 100% pure soy wax — no paraffin, no wax blends, no dyes, and a lead-free cotton wick. The fragrance oils are phthalate-free, vegan, and never tested on animals.
Trim the wick to 1/4" before each burn and keep burns to about two hours at a time for the cleanest, most even melt pool. Browse the full book lover soy candle collection.