Drake, we do not need any more celebrity concept scented candles

We’ve only just recovered from Gwynnie’s vagina candle, now we can smell Drake - celebrity candles must be extinguished
Drake
Kevin Winter/Getty Images

In the words of Drake himself, “that's the wrong thing to do”. I admire the Canadian rapper as much as the next person who has hollered along to Hotline Bling after a few too many gin and tonics but this time he has gone too far. He has released a line of scented candles one of which boasts that it “actually smells like Drake”. What, you may ask, is Drake’s scent? 

Well, it’s complicated. “Smooth musk… introspective as in an interpretation of your beautiful self, yet extrovertive as how you would want others to see your bold and brilliant self." What does that even mean? Other than that Drake should stick to song writing.  

This is an intervention. We do not need any more concept scented candles.

It is not entirely Drake’s fault. The whole stink started with Gwyneth Paltrow and her vagina candle (a steal at £58). Admittedly if you had to smell anyone’s vagina, you would be curious about Paltrow’s – she has put it, errr, front and centre of her career with vaginal steaming, vaginal jade eggs and a Netflix documentary with a strong vulva theme including a giant vagina sculpture that she stood inside. I thought the candle was a novelty one off, some levity to start of the year, but it didn’t stop there. 

Holly Willoughby shocked viewers as she said she'd like to buy the new vagina-scented candle from Goop
PA / ITV / Goop

Not one to be upstaged, Kim Kardashian West launched her own candle (or should that be kandle) last month with her mother. It has notes of jasmine and amber. Now Drake has bookended 2020 with his own, we have a duty to extinguish this trend. Otherwise every celebrity will make us smell them.  

Celebrity perfumes were bad enough – even if they are successful for a moment they do inevitably end up in the bargain section of duty free and is that really the legacy anyone wants? Any famous person should ask themselves would Kate Moss do it? If the answer is no then stop. And celebrities are encouraging the proliferation of overwrought candle concepts, with names that read like bad poetry your sixth form crush wrote – concrete after lightning anyone?

Instagram/ @kkwfragrance

I am not against candles. I still laugh at the Two Ronnies’ Fork Candles sketch. Birthday candles, tealights and Diptyque and Miller Harris have endured for a reason – they abide by the principle that less is more.  

There is an appetite for candles. The global scented candles market is on fire, expected to reach USD 545.2 million by 2025, expanding at an annual rate of 8.4%. But the poor celebrities have misunderstood this as an indication that they need to get involved when actually they should leave it to the experts, leaving us all to breathe easy.

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