Agnes + Cat Candles

If you're after a candle that smells like an actual place rather than a generic idea of "cosy", Agnes + Cat is a very good place to start.

The range runs from £15 votives to £26.99 Kilner jars, and includes botanical soy wax candles with crackling wooden wicks, Kilner jars, 200g votives and Herb Garden pots.

The fragrances are what make this range particularly good.

Lakeland Mocha combines roasted coffee and cocoa with damp earth — very much the feeling of a first coffee on a cold morning.

Roses of Sawrey is the floral choice, inspired by the cottage garden roses of Sawrey, the Lake District village where Beatrix Potter lived, with the feel of a full bouquet in bloom and a garden in June rather than a bottle of rose water.

Fellberry and Moorland have that green, rainy countryside feel.

Dolly Blue takes its name from the laundry blue that went into the wash on Mondays, with a soft, powdery, clean scent like sheets dried outside.

If sweet, dessert-style candles aren't really your thing, we'd start here.

The different formats are useful too. The 400ml Kilner jars give you plenty of wax and are a good choice for a larger living space. The 200g votives are an easy way to try a new fragrance and make lovely gifts. The botanical candles are the ones to choose if appearance matters as much as scent, with their wooden wicks adding a gentle crackle as they burn, and they arrive boxed, which helps if they're a present.

The Herb Garden pots are a little different again, with terracotta-style pots sitting on black metal stands. They look particularly good in a kitchen or on a windowsill.

Wooden wicks do need a little more attention than ordinary cotton ones. Keep the wick around 3–5mm and remove the charred top before lighting again. That small bit of maintenance makes a big difference to how easily they relight.

As with any candle, let the first burn reach the edges of the container, use a heatproof surface and never leave it burning unattended.