La Montaña Cloudburst candle
We're pretty crazy for La Montaña's candles – which were created by a former beauty PR who knows a good thing when she smells it. (India Knight's pretty crazy about them, too, as you can read here, describing them as 'the best, and best-smelling, candles I've ever come across.') This, however, is probably our favourite yet, with a real 'wild mountain' feel (or rather aroma) to it. La Montaña's founder Cassandra Hall lives with her husband Jonathan up a mountain in Spain, where the weather's scorching in summer, brisk in winter – and where there are some humdinger storms.
This was designed to conjure up the scent of that mountain, after a summer downpour. As Cass writes on her blog: 'My particular memory is of having friends to stay and of them being disappointed that there was a storm brewing. I remember extremely well going on summer holidays and every minute of sunshine being desperately important, so I really felt for them. We had to retreat inside while the heavens roiled and groaned and unleashed a torrent of water – and then suddenly it was gone, and wonderful great shafts of light appeared from behind the clouds.' (See below for Cass's picture of the inspiration!)
'We all stepped outside gingerly, checking that the garden hadn’t been washed away, and, to a man, we all said: “Wow, the air smells beautiful!” You could still smell the rain itself, but mingled with the herbs we grow on our front step, and as we walked through the garden, it seemed that the rain had washed away the dusty cloaks on our lemon and lime trees and sharpened their citrus loveliness. And there was still that gorgeous alchemy of the wild mountain flora, surrounding our house and garden. As fragrant experiences go, it was delectable, and, as sometimes happens, the name for the candle came to us immediately: Cloudburst.'
Cass's perfumer has brilliantly evoked that fresh, aromatic scent with bergamot, basil, lavender, lemon, lime and breezy ozonic notes, together with rockrose and wild mountain fennel.
So: ignore the fact it sets out to evoke summer downpours; this is just an all-round great smell for any time of year.
La Montaña Cloudburst Candle at lamontana.co.uk/from £16 for a votive (burns at least 15 hours) – the larger candles are priced £35 and burn for at least 40 hours