Is there anything nicer than lighting a lovely, powerfully scented candle as the leaves begin to fall and it gets darker earlier? There isn’t. Especially when that candle — my vote for the top spot on the list of the best fall Diptyque candles — is the Diptyque Pumpkin candle (a.k.a. Citrouille).

As much as this is a Diptyque pumpkin candle review, it’s first and foremost a round-up of the five best fall Diptyque candles. When I began writing it, I was sure — sure! 100%! — it would be Feu de Bois. There’s no candle, Diptyque or otherwise, I love more than Feu de Bois (except, maybe, Sapin de Nuit, which was a limited-edition holiday candle and is sort of Feu de Bois adjacent — it’s like a woodfire, but of a pine tree). But I had never tried Citrouille, the Diptyque pumpkin candle, and I knew I’d have to before I wrote this.

So I did — and let me tell you, I hated it when I first burned it. It’s so strong. Now: Don’t get me wrong, I only like candles with extremely strong throws. I want to be enveloped in scent — otherwise, why pay the money? And Citrouille did that — but I didn’t like it! My immediate reaction: Now that is just too much pumpkin. It smelled exactly like the interior of a pumpkin. Am I dumb? I expected something like pumpkin spice — a bit of this, a bit of that, some clove, some cinnamon, some nutmeg. (I didn’t conjure that up on my own: According to Diptyque, Citrouille has “mouthwatering notes of chestnut and spices, inspired by traditional pumpkin pies, mingle with crisp green accents of fruit.”) Mais non! It’s pumpkin — pumpkin. I’m using all the italics I can because I don’t know how else to say that it smelled exactly like the hot interior of the sweetest pumpkin you can imagine. It took a week, but I became obsessed with it, and burned it all the way down to the bottom within a period of four weeks. It’s the fastest I’ve ever gone through a Diptyque candle, and it was worth every cent.

Moving on to the rest of the best fall Diptyque candles:

2. Feu de Bois
Feu de Bois is still my favorite Diptyque candle — somehow it seems OK, to believe that this is the best in the whole range, but that Citrouille is better for autumn. In fact, you can read a whole post about how great Feu de Bois is — but the TL;DR is that it smells like the best woodfire you’ve ever smelled, in the tidiest little cabin in the cutest little forest glen. It’s perfection.

3. Cannelle
Cannelle means cinnamon, and indeed, this is candle smells exactly like it — though in the sense that cinnamon is the bark of a tropical tree. This candle smells like the whole of the tree — a classic cinnamon scent, yes, but also the bark, the roots, the forest in which it grows. It’s like the holistic experience of cinnamon, and it is lovely.

4. Chêne
What is it about autumn that smells like big oak trees? Chêne is — you guessed it — French for oak, and that scent is replicated here. If you love the smell of old bureaus, you will absolutely love this. I added it to the list (over, say, Pomander, which was close) because it’s unlike anything else on here — a little more masculine, a little more subtle.

5. Sapin
OK, so Sapin is definitely a transition to the holiday period candle — but it’s perfect for that time between Thanksgiving and Christmas (which, after all, is mostly fall). This is a limited-edition holiday candle, always presented in a special way — this year, as Diptyque notes, “in a vessel decorated with flames in green and gold.” As to the smell: It’s essentially a Christmas tree, but the best Christmas tree you’ve ever smelled. What could be better?