Rank 06 of 10
Byredo
The most beautiful object, the hardest arithmetic
- Origin
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Founded
- 2006
- Wax
- Vegetable wax blend
- Price range
- $95 to $260
The verdict
Byredo makes the most beautiful candle in this test and charges accordingly. Bibliothèque is genuinely original, plum and leather and old paper, and the heavy coloured glass is the only vessel here that looks like somebody with a point of view designed it. It is also $1.58 per burn hour, the worst on the board, and the throw sits a clear step behind Diptyque and Boy Smells. This is a design purchase and it is a good one, provided you know that is what you are making.
Kate Gorski, Founder and lead reviewer
Background
About Byredo
Byredo came out of Stockholm in 2006 with a Nordic-minimal identity that the rest of the category has been copying ever since. The candles arrived later than the fragrances and inherited the same restraint: a heavy glass in one flat colour, a foil label, nothing else.
Bibliothèque is the one worth the money. Plum, peach and violet on top, leather and patchouli underneath, and something dusty in the middle that genuinely does read as a room full of old books. It is the second most distinctive scent on this list after Santal 26 and it is far easier to live with.
The candle burns well without ever being remarkable at it. Forty-nine minutes to a full melt pool is slow, and 18 feet of throw is the shortest reading in the top six. What you are buying is the object and the composition, and Byredo prices both like it knows.
Raw data
The burn log
3 units, 176 logged hours, one 18 by 14 foot room with the door closed and the HVAC off.
- Time to full melt pool
- 49 min
- Throw distance
- 18 ft
- Units burned
- 3
- Wick
- Single cotton wick
- Vessel
- Heavy coloured glass, unbranded except for the foil label
- Tested unit
- 240 g, 60 h
- Tunneling
- Slight on the first unit, none after we lengthened the first burn
- Soot
- Light carbon above hour 45
- Wick behaviour
- Stable, one trim at hour 16
- End of life
- 6 mm residue, coloured glass is the best keeper in the test
The range
Signature scents
- 01
Bibliothèque
Plum, leather and old paper. The reason to buy Byredo and nothing else like it.
- 02
Tree House
Cedar, moss and cut grass. Cold, green and slightly damp.
- 03
Burning Rose
Rose over smoke and pepper. Dark rather than romantic.
- 04
Cotton Poplin
Clean linen without the laundry-aisle sweetness.
- 05
Peyote Poem
Coconut, cardamom and iris. The softest thing in the range.
The trade
What you gain, what you give up
In its favour
- Best vessel in the test and the one most likely to be kept
- Bibliothèque is a genuinely original composition
- Rated 60 hours and delivered it in all three units
- Cold throw is top-three despite the modest hot throw
- Restrained packaging with less waste than the gifting brands
Against it
- $1.58 per burn hour, the worst value on this list
- 18 feet of throw is short for the price bracket
- 49 minutes to a full melt pool is slow
- Outside Bibliothèque the range is pleasant but unexceptional
Buy it if
People who will still have the empty glass on a shelf in three years, and anyone who wants a scent nobody else in the building is burning.
Skip it if
Large rooms and tight budgets. At 18 feet and $1.58 an hour it fails both tests simultaneously.
The arithmetic
Price and value
We burned the Bibliothèque, 240 g at $95, rated at 60 hours. That works out to $1.58 per burn hour against a board average near $0.89. On our value column Byredo scores 6.4 out of 10, which accounts for measured performance and what the vessel is worth once the wax is gone, not just the rate.
Questions
Byredo FAQ
Is a Byredo candle worth $95?
On performance alone, no. On the object and the composition, arguably yes. It posts the worst cost per hour in our test and the best design score, so the answer depends entirely on which column you weight.
Which Byredo candle is best?
Bibliothèque, by a distance. It is the most original scent in the range and the one that justifies the price. Tree House is the alternative if you want something colder and greener.
How long does a Byredo candle burn?
The 240 g size is rated at 60 hours and all three of our units delivered it. The 600 g three-wick runs closer to 100 hours.
Can you reuse the Byredo glass?
Yes, and it is the best reuse candidate in the test. The glass is thick, unbranded apart from a foil label that peels off cleanly, and works as a tumbler or a brush pot.