A short defence of the unscented room.

We make candles for a living. We are also, increasingly, defenders of the unscented room.

There is a kind of quiet that only happens in air that has not been arranged. Coffee on the counter. The faint smell of paper from a stack of unread mail. The trace of last night's dinner. None of it composed; all of it true.

The wrong question is which candle to light. The right question is whether to light one at all.

We light a candle when we want a room to feel like itself, only more so. We do not light one to cover a smell, or to perform calmness, or because the candle has been sitting on the shelf for a month and we feel guilty.

If you've been burning candles every evening for a week, try a Tuesday without one. The Wednesday candle will smell better than any candle has any right to.