Gentleman of Leisure is writer, erstwhile lecturer and notionally overeducated Martin Marks's PAPERMAG column on the things he likes and why.
Rarely do candles make one want to channel one's inner Sarah Boyle and sing major portions of Les Miserables, let alone write a column with an almost unforgivable number of wax and/or candle puns, most of them rendered in French. But révolution (note: French for “revolution”) seems to be in the air. What does it smell like? For Ramdane Touhame, renegade Parisian fashion designer cum candle maker to Maison de Cire Trudon, the world’s oldest manufacturer of wax goods, the answer’s simple enough: “It smells of burned bread. The revolution in France started when people did not have enough bread to eat.”
Touhame’s talking about Revolution, with its yeasty hints of nutmeg, ginger and sandalwood, one of the scented candles he’s created as part of a collection meant to span the history of the venerable house of wax. Founded in 1643, Trudon’s candles have lit Versailles’ halls, Madame de Pompadour’s boudoir, even Louis XVI’s jail cell.
On a recent trip to Aedes de Venustas, the charmingly sepulchral apothecary in the West Village, I engaged in a smell-test of the line, each candle kept under its own glass cloches lest the winds of change prove too fragrant. Abd el Kader, made especially for the West Village boutique and available in a larger taper, had the bouquet of green tea, with hints of tobacco, and mint. Manon -- a perfect gift for maman -- reminded me of laundry drying in a field of lavender, while Dada, with its core of Chamomile and Eucalyptus, had a bubble-gummy feel to it.
Some of Cire Trudon’s candles might wax a bit too odoriferous for the casual odorifereur; Empire had the subtlety -- and smell -- of an explosion of gunpowder, while Odeur de Lune, an artistic rendering of the moon’s surface, had metalized sulfur as a listed ingredient. Odeur, indeed. But Touhame’s enthusiasm for the company’s artistic line of bougies seems boundless. “We asked the NASA to send us an analysis and we did a candle!”
Back at my apartment, I shut the windows and blasted the 1812 Overture -- partially for inspiration, but more to drown out the incessant drilling in Union Square. And for those sticklers out there who’d remind us that the 1812 Overture commemorates Napoleon’s defeat, a Youtubed Sarah Boyle performance, or meltdown (nyuck, nyuck, nyuck), would probably also do the trick.
I then lit a Roi Soleil, with a fragrance reminiscent of Versailles’ smoky wooden floors. As a diffusion of cannon blasts overwhelmed the sound of jackhammers, and the smell of French oak, pine, and citrus filled the air, I was left yearning for days of liberté, égalité, and laund-ray. And so, in the spirit of nostalgia (and perhaps historical revisionism), I photoshopped several of these wonderful candles into David’s “Death of Marat” -- just to brighten things up! See above, and above all else: Vive la smellevolution!
More info:
www.ciretrudon.com
Price:
9.5 Oz. Candles: $75
Votive Candles: $110+
Available at:
Aedes de Venustas
9 Christopher St.
(212) 206-8674
www.aedes.com
