Best bets for the holidays: great candles to light up your home

These Metallic Bark Candles from Pottery Barn are great ways to light up your holidays.

Scented candles seem to be everywhere these days, and sometimes we yearn for a simple lit taper or columnar candle that delights the eye and leaves the nose alone. Most stores do carry unscented candles, fortunately, and 100 Candles is one of many good online resources for ordering.

But many people love fragrance. Look in your local grocery store and you will see an entire section of the household products aisle dedicated to home fragrance. There are sprays, plug-in scents, and now scented oil candles. Glade makes a line of such candles, and click on this Epinions link to read a consumer review of these Glade products. The consensus seems to be that these are more expensive than scented candles and do not last as long (only about 3 hours), but many of the fragrances are quite special.

Most stores that cater to home goods will carry some types of scented candles. Now is the perfect time to purchase them as many are on sale before the holidays. Start shopping now! I recommend these resources.

Yankee Candle -- they have a huge selection, as well as the intriguing Scentstories fragrance disks and the Cookies for Santa Beanswax Candle, one of their new eco-friendly soy candles (see photo).

Zionsville Candle -- we liked their natural soy candles and their Contemporary/Spa line looks fab.

Candlemart -- their Fruit Gel Candle looked cute for a kitchen, and they have a section on Decorate with Candles to show photos of candle decorating in various rooms of the house.

HomeGoods -- their inventory is constantly changing; check their website for the nearest store.

Pottery Barn -- their Sustainable-Wax Soy Candles in recycled glass votives (see photo) are wonderful eco-friendly ways to light up the holidays; I also loved their Metallic Bark Candles (see top photo); they're candles wrapped in real bark harvested from trees used in the furniture-making process, with the bark burnished with silver, white, and gold. Also check out their hand-dipped Chanukah Tapers.

Anthropologie -- These folks always have a great line of scented and unscented candles, but this year I'm mad about their Swaziland Swan Candle! Make a hot centerpiece by floating a flock of these lovelies on a mirror in the center of your table.

Target -- I think their CandleTini line is a hoot, scented candles in martini glasses.

Candelicious -- their triple-scented candles apparently blast out the fragrance.

Kmart -- an upscale Scented Soy Jar Candles line boasts amazing names like "Be Loved" and "Joyful Soul." Color me very surprised by this great candle line.

Illuminations -- another online candle group with a huge selection, and we like their handblown glass accessories and are crazy about the decorating you can do with their Large Morrocan Chandelier (see photo), so chic for over a dining room or breakfast table.

Pier 1 has a festive selection of holiday candles, and I thought their Star Candles (see photo) would make great accent pieces on end tables or put one by each place setting to create a festive holiday dinner party.

If you're feeling in a Do-It-Yourself mood, then there are many scented candlemaking kits available online or through hobby store retailers. Here are some resources to check out for DIY homemade candles.

Love to Know has some how-to information on making scented candles; that's a good place to start.

Cierra Candles features candle and soap making supplies.

Zionsville Candle has candlemaking kits and supplies and a soy candle making video to see how it's done.

The Complete Candlemaker: Techniques, Projects & Inspiration is a Norma Coney book that can explain candlemaking A to Z for the true crafter.

Some of the candle resources listed above carry up to 60 different fragrances and many burn for 30 hours or more, so it might be hard to choose from so many intriguing scents and candle styles. But it's fun to have too many options. And remember that badly-made candles are a major cause of air pollution in homes; avoid buying candles with lead wicks (the culprit for black sooting and smoking) and try to buy natural candle materials, e.g., soy and beeswax. But buy a lot of high-quality candles, and let your holidays shine.

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