What are the Best Candles for Home

It likely comes as no surprise, but here at the Sojourn Company – We Love Candles. We feel that candles can affect your mood and impact you not only on a physiologically but also a biological level.

As discussed in this Harvard Gazette article, Odors take a direct route to the limbic system” which includes amygdala and the hippocampus – both regions that are related to memories and emotions. 

Scents can stimulate the limbic system in our brains, which leads to stimulating the release of dopamine and serotonin, which are know as the “happy hormones”. 

Just as we can cater our furniture and lighting to set a tone or mood for different parts of our home, scent also plays a role welcoming guests in to your home, making a living room cozy, or a home office a place for focus and concentration.  

Today, let’s take a look at what is the best scented candles for home, and what to look for when choosing the best candles for your home.

Best Soy Candles for Home​

When looking at which wax base to chose for the candles to burn in your home, there are a few good options out there. A good rule of thumb is to choose a 100% Soy wax, beeswax, or vegetable wax based candle. In our homes we prefer not to burn anything that has been blended with paraffin wax, and here is our reasons why. 

To start, Soy wax has a lower melting point than many other candles waxes at 49 to 82 degrees Celsius (or 120 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit) 

An advantage to this melting point of soy wax is that candles burns cooler than the paraffin options allowing you to enjoy the scents for a longer period.

Soy wax candles are non-toxic and also benefit from containing no artificial ingredients or harmful by-products. Paraffin wax is made from petroleum oil which unfortunately produces harmful by-products when burned or melted. For larger spaces and the outdoors this may be less concerning, but for OUR homes we prefer to stick to soy. 
What to look for in a great candle to safely burn inside your Home:
  • 100% Soy, Coconut, Beeswax or vegetable-based
  • 100% Cotton Wicks (people do like wood wicks as well, just not for us.)
  • 100% Essential oils and non toxic fragrance oils (synthetic ingredients certified nontoxic).
We continue this conversation about the best waxes for scent throw in this in depth article on the subject here. Give it a read to learn more!

Best Scents for Different Rooms

A candle scent or fragrance is an effective way to set a mood for any occasion. As different parts of our homes are used for different purposes during various parts of our day, why not use candles to enhance moods. promote relaxation or dial in focus and concentration during those busy work hours?
Fragrance evokes memory and has the ability to tell a story with our senses – so what story are you looking to tell in each room of your how? Let’s take a closer look at the best candles scents for each part of your home. 

Best Scent for the Bedroom

Fragrances that utilize the calming scents and therapeutic benefits sandalwood, lavender, sage & chamomile are a great place to start when looking at scents best for the bedroom. 

Looking to relax before bed? studies indicate that lavender increase slow-wave sleep which can be instrumental in slowing our heartbeats and relaxing muscles.

Camomile is natural sedative, and another scent that cab promote sleep and relaxation. If you are looking for a scent to help you unwind before bed consider incorporating chamomile into your bedtime aromatherapy routine.

Or how about Vanilla – like we use in our Tahitian Bungalow Candle? Vanilla is known to have sedative benefits that help lower blood pressure and promote drowsy effects to relax the body and mind for any bedroom activity.

Perhaps you and you partner are looking to spice things up? How about spice?

There are a selection of Aphrodisiac scents that include ginger, vanilla & cinnamon. The spicy ginger is proven to enhance testosterone in males when used as a supplement.

Meanwhile, if looking add some romance to the boudoir, cinnamon is a natural aphrodisiac, and is found to increase the sexual drive.

Keep in mind to avoid citrus and minty scents in the bedroom as they are known to have energetic effects, not conducive to bed time.

What Size Candle for a Bedroom?

For a candle that will give a bedroom an adequate hot throw when lit, we recommend a medium sized candles, ranging 7-10 oz. (like our 8oz Sojourn Candles!)  with a single wick. Too large of a candle or those with multiple wicks might be overpowering for some room sizes, but staying around the 7-10oz mark should be suitable to scent up most average sized bedrooms. 

Another alternative could be to burn scatter a couple smaller 2oz+ candles around the bedroom – just be sure to extinguish them before falling asleep!

Best Scent for the Living Rooms

A welcoming and vibrant scent can make a lasting first impression to guest when first entering your house, or can create a festive vibe when entertaining guests in your living room. Nature has provided us with a scent for all occasions so let’s have at what we think is the best scents for living rooms. 

Us humans associate citrus fruits like bergamot (found in our amazing Al Fresco Candle) and lime smell fresh. It is believed the scents ties with cleaning products that our brands have been conditioned to associate citrus with fresh. 

Citrus fragrances also carry aromatherapy benefits, such as  being stress reducing & mood enhancing as they activate the limbic system.


Coniferous tree scents like pine (of the Pinaceae family) & cedar of the cypress (Cupressaceae) family are two popular fragrance or essential oils that make a great match for living rooms. While we tend to associate these needle bearing trees with holidays and winter scents, we love to use them year round as a bright, fresh scent that invites the outdoors inside.  

We wrote a pretty extensive article on what does cedarwood  smell like, WOOD you care to check it out?

You can also find the delightfully piney aromatic scent of Juniper Berry (Juniperus communis) in our ode to the desert candle, Yucca Valley.

 

Best Candles for Big Rooms

Now that you have chosen your scent for entertaining, we should discuss what is the best candles for big rooms like a living/tv room. Choosing the right size candle for a large room such as a rec room or den isn’t rocket science, and we have a trick to help you when making your choice. 

For this we turn to the age old candlemakers 8-10 Rule, which is as follows:

Place one 8 ounce candle for every 10 feet radius of room

Following the 8-10 rule is a general guideline to ensure your candle scent is able to permeate the entire room equally. A few smaller candles placed at various points around the space should serve as well. 

Our Sojourn Company candles balance a hearty fragrance load in our soy wax blends to offer a present and discernible scent without over powering the senses – and believe us, it was hard to perfect. 

Best Candles for Home Office

Are you like many of us that have ditched the cubicle – or at least a hybrid schedule, and now spend your 9-5 hours in a home office? And by home office, we meant gaming station, jam studio, or any space where focus and concentration is key? The power of scent may be able to help there as well. Let’s scratch and sniff out the best scents for the home office, and to promote concentration.

Clary Sage is well known in Aromatherapy for its ability to improve mental function. The presence of sage scent and essential oils may help you improve your productivity and mental focus.

Studies have shown that sage may also improve a measure of attention.

Our Yucca Valley candle utilizes the therapeutic benefits of sage to help achieve a focused and tranquil setting wherever you may choose to light it. 

The next scent on our hit list is Peppermint. The Peppermint scent is a great addition to home offices or any space where concentration and stress relief is needed as it is a known energy booster, invigorating the mind while promoting clear thinking.

Peppermint oil is a known remedy for treating stress. 

How to Choose Placement of Candles in the Home

When seeking to discover the key a perfect match between your candle and your room type and size, placement is key. 

But first, there are places and objects to avoid when maximizing your scent experiences.
Do not place candles near or under air vents, fans and windows.


This changes the rate the air is bing cycled, and thus your candle burning experience. This could result in an uneven melt pool, a weak hot throw of your candle scent, or sooty
black stains on the candles vessel.

This should go without saying, but we will say it anyways –  look to avoid placing lit candle near fabrics like curtains or drapes.

When placing your candle, look for a flat, heat-resistant surface such as tables and countertops. When in doubt, use a flammable coaster resilient to heat.   

What is the Best Scented Candles for your Home?

We know. There are a lot of great candle makers out in this world, so why choose the Sojourn Company? We are makers of artisanal quality, nature inspired soy wax candles that aim to pay tribute to exotic reaches, and exploration. And that’s our thing, but maybe it’s not yours. There are makers of candles that will use less than premium ingredients to whip up a sickly sweet Birthday Cake x Pumpkin Spice Latte candle and that is GREAT. It’s just not us. 

We are on a journey to capture the array of natures scents, and allow everyone who lights one of our candles an escape for their senses, even if only for a brief time. To do that, we employ the best wax, scent and essential oils we can source,  that have been painstakingly curated and crafted in to our custom blends. Lighting a Sojourn Company Candle opens a world of curiosity to the senses and we are so excited for you to just us. Give us a try – we think it’ll be your thing.