Deck the Halls with Fancy Candles: Diptyque Holiday Candles 2019 Review

Does anyone else feel like this holiday season is speeding by? Thanksgiving was more than a week ago and Christmas is right around the corner! I haven’t planned much holiday content this year, but one post I have been wanting to publish is a review of Diptyque’s lucky charms limited edition holiday 2019 candles. Every year Diptyque releases 3 limited edition scents for their holiday collection, and this year was no different.

This year’s collection has been inspired by charms and symbols of luck and protection and harmony. With the rising popularity of astrology, crystals, etc. I think Diptyque capitalized on the trend of mysticism. Each candle signifies a different mood. Protective Pine/ Pin Protecteur is designed to invoke protection, hope, and renewal. Lucky Flowers/ Flora Fortuna is for luck, harmony, and good energy. And Blissful Amber/ Ambre Félicité is inspired by serenity, balance, and wisdom.

I have been burning these candles over the past month and am ready to share my thoughts!

Price, Availability, & Size

Each candle comes in two sizes. A 70 g candle that retails for $38.00 and a 190 g candle that retails for $72.00. You can also get a coffret of all three 70g sized candles for $114.00. The smaller candles have a burn time of 30+ hours and the larger candles have a burn time of 60+ hours. From my personal experience, I usually get a longer burn time than advertised.

If you do choose to buy all 3 candles, you should know that you do not save any money by purchasing the 3 pack like I did. I simply did so because I found them released early at Hudson Yards and in the thrill of the find, impulse purchased the gift set. I actually recommend purchasing the 3 separately instead because then you get decorative, individual candle boxes! Unless, of course, you don’t care about packaging. In that case, do whatever your heart desires.

Usually, their holiday candles don’t sell out so quickly but this year is the exception! You can find them all on the Diptyque site, where they are thankfully still in stock. Neiman Marcus, Bluemercury, Nordstrom, Saks, and Space NK all have various items in stock but not the entire collection as many candles have sold out.

You can also find them in store at your local Diptyque counter/ store/ retailer.

Scents & Notes

Protective Pine/ Pin Protecteur (Green Candle): The Protective Pine candle has notes of Siberian and Balsam pine, cedar, basil, and sage. To me this smells like sweet, evergreen trees. You can definitely smell the blends of pine and cedar, and I think the herbal notes bring the sweetness in. Personally, I find 90% of pine candles smell the same and kind of basic, hence I seldom splurge on pine candles. I think the blend of notes on this candle are unique making it my favorite of their collection!

Lucky Flowers/ Flora Fortuna (Red Candle): The Lucky Flowers candle has notes of rose, clove, and aniseed. I generally love when candles have a balance between two opposing families of notes— like here we have softer floral notes balanced with spices.

Blissful Amber/ Ambre Félicité (Blue Candle): The Blissful Amber candle has notes of amber, geranium, and lavender blended with musk. Overall, this smells lightweight and sort of powdery to me. It’s definitely the lightest of the three scents.

Packaging

The packaging on this year’s collection is absolutely gorgeous! The designs are seamlessly printed onto the candle, and I haven’t had any issues with the design warping when burned. Each candle has different iconography to match with the emotions and energy they are meant to invoke. Even the colors have been picked meaningfully. All the designs were created by the German illustrator, Olaf Hajek.

How Does it Burn?

Protective Pine/ Pin Protecteur (Green Candle): When I first burned the Protective Pine candle, I had no issues. But later on it did start tunneling a little bit. But after wrapping it in aluminum foil, it evens itself out.

Lucky Flowers/ Flora Fortuna (Red Candle): Lucky Flowers burned the best out of the three candles. It burned evenly without any tunneling (I always trim the wick to 1/4 before burning any candle, which post of the time leads to even burning.)

Blissful Amber/ Ambre Félicité (Blue Candle):This was one finicky candle. Blissful Amber burned the worst out of the three candles. Every single time I burned this candle, I had issues with it tunneling. Even when I trimmed the wick, wrapped it in tin foil, and ensured that I left it burning for 2+ hours, it still tunneled. I was also disappointed that the wax separated the last time I burned this. I have owned about a dozen Diptyque candles over the past couple of years, from their smallest 1.7 oz votives to their XL outdoor candles, and have never faced this issue before.

Throw, Sillage, & All That Jazz

Protective Pine/ Pin Protecteur (Green Candle): Amazing. As soon as I lit this, the smell filled up my room within minutes. When I burn this at night, I can still smell the scent when I wake up the next morning.

Lucky Flowers/ Flora Fortuna (Red Candle): Similar to Protective Pine, Lucky Flowers also has wonderful throw. But it does take a little bit longer for the scent to fill up the room. It’s a build up but after a half hour, you can’t miss it! The scent also lingers around for a few hours after I stop burning it.

Blissful Amber/ Ambre Félicité (Blue Candle): After burning the first two candles in the collection, I thought this would be another winner. Sadly, the scent does not translate when it’s burning. It basically smells like nothing! Unless I am standing right next to the candle, it’s really hard to pick up on the scent. The only place this really worked for me was in my tiny bathroom.

Final Thoughts

While I really loved the inspiration behind the collection, the packaging, and the scents of this year’s collection, I am disappointed that 2 out of 3 of them burned unevenly. That said, I really loved the Protective Pine scent— it’s unexpectedly sweet while still balancing the wintery scent of pine and cedar wood. The candle has good throw and the scent lingers around for hours after I’ve stopped burning it. For all that, I am willing to deal with some tunneling. I love the scent so much I am even tempted to pick up the room spray!

The same cannot be said for the Blissful Amber candle. While I do enjoy the actual scent of the candle, the throw is absolutely pitiful. Perhaps the larger 190g candle would burn better? But the 70g candle isn’t even able to fill up my bedroom.

And lastly we have our all-arounder— the Lucky Flowers candle. It burned beautifully and evenly, has a lovely balance of notes, and fills my room with its aroma. The blend of floral notes with spices makes for a very unique but delicious holiday scent. It even has a nice cold throw when it’s not burning! 100% would recommend and repurchase this candle.