The Diptyque pumpkin candle — a.k.a Citrouille — is its best fall candle, full stop. At least until Halloween.
This is because Citrouille smells like the inside of a pumpkin, if a pumpkin were delicious. It’s so sweet that it’s almost honeyed — it produces a haze of sweetness. When I first bought Citrouille a few years ago, I’d 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.”)
- Diptyque Citrouille
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 is not the scent of a pumpkin spice latte — it is the scent of a pumpkin. 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.
The formulation changes a tiny bit every year, but the 2026 edition is to me virtually indistinguishable from the 2025 version — an all-time best Diptyque candle. I recommend buying it as early in the season as possible, and then putting it away until next year on the first of November. I tried burning it in the spring earlier this year and it was an abomination.
Speaking of: A note of caution on fall candles. Citrouille is the best Diptyque fall candle, but only through Halloween. This is because there is not one autumn but two: the autumn between the beginning of school (technically summer) and Halloween, and then a second one, between Halloween and November. Citrouille is the Diptyque candle for Fall Part I. Feu de Bois, of course, is the Diptyque candle-of-choice for Fall Part II, until the holiday candles take over after Thanksgiving. It’s a whole thing.
Your pumpkin candle-buying needs might not extend to Diptyque and its $90 price tag, which is simply too high. If that’s the case — and you like cardamom, which I do, as I believe it to be the king of autumnal spices — please proceed to Quince’s $24 Pumpkin Cardamom candle. It’s spicier than Citrouille, and not as overwhelming, but it still delivers autumnal vibes in excess, and at a quarter of the price.
