Our Diptyque Feu de Bois Diptyque review:
Feu de Bois is my favorite of all the Diptyque candles, and it is the best-ever fall candle. Forget the pumpkin spice latte candles, the pumpkin pie candles, the sweater-weather super-comfy candles: They always get it slightly wrong (or smell like a pumpkin muffin). Feu de Bois is what fall actually smells like. It’s not cheap (52€, or $68) but it’s meant to last 50-60 hours. $1 an hour for maximum autumn vibes? OK.
So what does Feu de Bois smell like?
Some Diptyque candles can be hard to describe — like Baies, which to me, smells like my allergies. (Or a field? A citrusy field?) Feu de Bois, though — seriously, nothing’s simpler: It smells like its name translated into English, a wood fire. It smells like a December Sunday — closer to Thanksgiving than Christmas. (Temporal note: Last year’s Limited Edition Sapin de Nuit holiday candle was Feu de Bois just a couple weeks later in the calendar, basically Feu de Bois + a Christmas tree.)
Officially, according to Diptyque, Feu de Bois is:
Wintertime… In the hearth, a fire roars, throwing out its light and casting shadows. The wood crackles as flames slowly consume the logs, releasing their dense, smoky scent.
Well, sure, if they say so. It smells better than a wood fire, thanks to those juniper and birch notes. It doesn’t smell so much like the fire itself than it does a house, in Scandinavia, in the middle of the woods, in which a wood fire is burning. A+ for ambience.
Is Feu de Bois worth the money?
I feel like whenever I’m looking at reviews of candles that cost more than $50, I’m really just wondering if it’s worth the cost or not — no one’s Googling an $8 single-wick White Pumpkin candle from White Barn, because it’s less of an investment. With Feu de Bois, my personal belief is that it is worth the money. That’s not as simple as saying I like how it smells, though I love how it smells. There are candles (I’m looking at you, Brooklyn Candle Studio) that make candles with incredible scents that I literally can’t smell when I burn them. Feu de Bois is a nice, strong candle. It won’t linger in the air after it’s out, though that seems too much to ask of any candle these days. It’s the perfect candle from the beginning of Daylight Savings Time until the week before Christmas (when obviously you’ll want to switch over to your holiday candles). It’s football, wooly sweaters, crisp air, gray skies, movies under a blanket on a rainy weekend afternoon. It’s a weekend at a damp Scottish castle lit by candles. As far as late-in-the-year home fragrancing goes, it’s invaluable. In short: My Diptyque Feu de Bois review is: Get it.
