Astier de Villatte at Selvedge
Thinking about returning to work and leaving the holidays behind will always be the hardest part of a well-earned voyage. This is often made worse by the rolling-in of September weather: grey mists, driving rain, a cold wind, all make up the inevitability of the coming winter, and what seems like the end of any hope to see sunlight again.
Instead of flying south like birds, the best we can do is work on travelling through the mind, whether its drinking the undrinkable Ouzo to remind us of hot nights outside at a cafe in Greece, or using books to travel anywhere from the South of France with Françoise Sagan, or Cartagena with Gabriel García Márquez. By far the most elegant option, however, would be to use an Astier de Villatte candle as a personal teleporter to far-flung destinations around the world, instantly accessible, olfactorily.
Named after a string of villages and towns as unconnected as they are varied, such as Naples, Monte Carlo, Algiers, Aoyama and Zermatt, each candle plays upon the essence of the place, and translates it into a scent which has the power to encapsulate numerous facets of their location. With Cambridge, rather than turning straight to dusty books for inspiration, the house riffs upon an Agatha Christie -style protagonist, educated and worldly, but ultimately English: a crisp, masculine green verbena blended with a cultivate Turkish rose and cinnamon. Jerusalem marries the exotic Middle East with the dependably ecclesiastical in its inclusion of oud and cedar wood calling to mind kneeling at the altar waiting for confession cut against the leafy scented cypress leaves.
Nothing is more representative of the coming winter than heading inside as the nights grow shorter. But by simply lighting a candle and dreaming of a faraway souk, or sun-warmed temple ruins, the darkness of winter can easily be staved off by memories of a summer that suddenly doesn't seem so long ago.
Astier de Villatte scented candles, from £63
www.selvedge.org
Named after a string of villages and towns as unconnected as they are varied, such as Naples, Monte Carlo, Algiers, Aoyama and Zermatt, each candle plays upon the essence of the place, and translates it into a scent which has the power to encapsulate numerous facets of their location. With Cambridge, rather than turning straight to dusty books for inspiration, the house riffs upon an Agatha Christie -style protagonist, educated and worldly, but ultimately English: a crisp, masculine green verbena blended with a cultivate Turkish rose and cinnamon. Jerusalem marries the exotic Middle East with the dependably ecclesiastical in its inclusion of oud and cedar wood calling to mind kneeling at the altar waiting for confession cut against the leafy scented cypress leaves.
Nothing is more representative of the coming winter than heading inside as the nights grow shorter. But by simply lighting a candle and dreaming of a faraway souk, or sun-warmed temple ruins, the darkness of winter can easily be staved off by memories of a summer that suddenly doesn't seem so long ago.
Astier de Villatte scented candles, from £63
www.selvedge.org