Clearly no one NEEDS a $95 candle.

But if you find yourself, as I did recently, with a gift card for a place where you just didn’t want anything else, but you had to spend the damn thing, OR if your significant other is looking for something to get you for Valentine’s Day, then this is the answer.

Cire Trudon, Solis Rex.

This is the ad copy.

Inspired by the elaborate parquetry of Château de Versailles’s famous Hall of Mirrors, this regal perfume radiates vapours of wax, candelabra and palace. A sumptuous trail of incense weaves through a tapestry of coniferous trees, cut with solar rays of citrus.

I bet the copywriter high-fived himself after getting away with that shit.

Ignore the copy. It smells amazing. Green and sharp, but not like being punched in the face by a fistful of mulch. Powdery, but not old ladyish. Clean and soapy, but none of that nasty muguet. It’s just SO GOOD. It will make you happy.

I love Cire Trudon Candles. I’ve been faithful to the Ernesto candle for years, and was on my way to get another one with my little gift card when I sniffed Solis Rex and dropped Ernesto like drunk girlfriend on New Years Eve. Cire Trudon candles last for about a year (way, way longer than Diptyque), burning one for an hour will make your whole house smell divine all day, and after they’re all used up, you can use them for your make-up brushes, or pens on your desk, or whatever blows your skirt up.

You can buy it at Lucky Scent or John Lewis in the UK.