When fire engine-red, gloriously knobby heirloom tomatoes begin to appear on stands at farmer’s markets in the summer months, that’s when it starts to feel like anything is possible.
Go ahead. Pick one up to get a whiff of its zingy, vegetal aroma. Maybe give it a light squeeze (but not too hard!). The sun is shining, overcast-induced depression is long forgotten, and earth’s vibrant bounty is simply begging to be transformed into some kind of mouthwatering, no-fuss meal.
Tomato season, like many good things, is fleeting. Luckily, there are more than a few tomato-scented candles on the market to fill your home with their life-affirming aroma. In recent years, tomato has become the It Girl scent of the moment for fragrance companies. Luxury fashion house Loewe’s tomato candle inspired a flurry of press coverage, and Flamingo Estate’s version was so popular it inspired the company to release tomato room sprays, cleaning products, and hand soaps. Tomato scents are more than a moment—they’re a movement.
But which tomato candles are worth the price and which will leave you burned (sorry)? That’s the question we sought to answer in our extensive sniff test. We gathered nine of the most popular tomato-scented candles on the market, and put them through a rigorous testing process to determine which were the absolute best.
In this article
Unlike our typical taste tests, we knew that we’d have to keep all the products separate from each other as we tested to make sure our testers would get an unadulterated sniff of each candle’s smell. To accomplish that, we tested the candles in a ventilated space, keeping the group in a separate room, and bringing in each candle individually to give testers an opportunity to sniff and write their notes.
How we picked the products
As we began to make plans for testing, we knew there were a few iconic brands we had to include; Flamingo Estate, well known for its popular tomato-scented candle, was a no-brainer, as was Loewe’s version.
We curated the rest of the list of our contenders by taking stock of what other outlets and buying guides had covered previously. This gave us a good picture of which brands had been covered, and which had slipped under the radar. Finally, we scrolled through Reddit threads on r/luxurycandles and other candle-centric communities to see which brands candle lovers were raving about. We culled our list to ensure the candles we tested were in stock and widely available for purchase.
How our editors evaluated
In their quest to find the ideal tomato-scented candle, our editors put their olfactory senses to the test. They evaluated each candle based on smell—first a big sniff of the candle itself, then, they used a makeshift cloche over each candle to get a whiff of the scentscape in a less direct, more diffused concentration. That second sniff allowed them to detect the more delicate overtones and undertones that might be present in each candle.
Editors were looking for a tomato candle that had an aroma that was neither too robust nor too demure. They wanted a tomato candle that smelled “fresh,”and “clean” as well as “savory” and “salty.” A great candle, they said, would have an uncanny exactitude in its recreation of the tomato scent. It should be surprising how tomato-y this candle smells, they agreed. Any waxy, dull, or perceptibly artificial notes would disqualify a contender.
The customer reviews of these gourmand scents do not disappoint.
Elliott Jerome Brown Jr.
While some other brands offered the option of a single wick or double wick version of their tomato-scented candle, Apotheke’s Tomato Tarragon candle is available in a double wick only—though at $54 it’s still cheaper than some smaller candles we tested. According to Apotheke, all products are handcrafted, and its two-wick tomato-scented candles have a burn time of up to 35 hours.
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