Scents and more that will help you dress up for the holidays
Healing energies, handcrafted ceramic vessels and fashionable floral designs: The season’s best new home fragrances have way more to offer than just a sweet scent.
--Venerable Parisian candlemaker Diptyque recently opened its first Southern California boutique at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa. New designs include limited-edition holiday candles in jeweled hues and a refillable Hourglass Diffuser, which can be used with a range of scented oils and is also an appealing objet.
--Create the ambience of an at-home speak-easy with Antica Farmacista’s new Manhattan diffuser, inspired by the retro cocktail and the city that never sleeps.
--London-based fashion designer Mary Katrantzou’s candle for skin-care brand Rodial is a find for friends who yearn to be on-trend. Decorated with a kaleidoscopic digital floral print from Katrantzou’s 2012 Nature vs. Nurture fashion collection, the candle hints at the burst of colorful, painterly patterns we’ll see in stores next spring.
--Fornasetti, the brand that continues the whimsical Italian artistic tradition of the late Piero Fornasetti, conjures a sun-baked island breeze with the Sole di Capri candle packaged in a handcrafted ceramic vessel. (To celebrate the centenary of Fornasetti’s birth, an exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan through Feb. 9 showcases more than 700 of his 13,000 archival designs, https://www.triennale.org.)
--Spiritualists may be attracted to Los Angeles designer Lisa Carrier’s candles, embellished with quartz crystal clusters associated with healing and balancing energies, and scented with an incense used at daily Mass since the 1500s in the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
--Or, if you’re feeling particularly generous, Quintessence Paris offers the limited-edition Olfactive Calendar 2014 featuring fantastical commissioned artwork and candles by Parisian tastemakers, such as haute couturier Franck Sorbier, chef Alain Passard and actress Chiara Mastroianni, for every month of the new year.
