Missed Your Favourite Festival? Don’t Worry, There’s A Candle For That…
We’re all craving normality. The thrill of heading to your local without having to hand over Edward Snowden levels of personal data, being once again able to bore all your social media followers with endless pictures of you mashed up at a festival, or the banality of enjoying a summer blockbuster at the cinema sans mask, are all distant memories. And with a vaccine still months (if not years) away it looks like we’ll have to make do with candles. Say what?
First there were candles that reminded us of Gwyneth Paltrow’s vagina (as if we needed reminding, it gets more press than its dippy hippy film star owner), but now there’s candles designed specifically to remind us of life ‘before the pandemic’. White Company, Jo Malone and Diptique can all get in the sea, give me a bouquet of Cineworld multiplex, we’re in!
The creations, from candlemaker Earl of East, are evocative of normality and what’s more they’re for a good cause, raising funds to help out the hospitality industry. Which just begs the question… what on earth will they smell like?
Top notes of burger van and singed candyfloss bloom above an earthy bed of unwashed hair and dew-damp sleeping bag…
First up, ‘The Festival’. The scent of a festival, a sweet evocation of illicit drugs, sweat and upturned Portaloos. The attractive candle, priced at £45 (a snip compared to Glasto tickets and without the ridiculous booking system), will replace any yearning to mingle with the unwashed trying to get a glimpse of Wheezer…
According to creator Earl of East the candle is a ‘floral haze of cut grass, burned skin and sun-warmed cider, with just the merest shimmer of distant portaloo. Top notes of burger van and singed candyfloss bloom above an earthy bed of unwashed hair and dew-damp sleeping bag. A resonant bouquet, tied with a ribbon of sweet cannabis smoke’. Wait, burned skin?
Missing your local boozer? Earl of East can help out with ‘Top notes of spilt beer, hair pomade and chip fat jostle amongst a pungent base of varnished teak and sticky carpet. A waft of testosterone gives way to the ersatz-lemon of a urinal block, as the salted breath of pork scratchings is soused in cheap rosé and freckled with cigarette ash. A potent fragrance that lingers, like the melancholy ramblings of an old inebriate.’
It’ll last longer than a round, and (if you’re in London) costs less…
As for a cinema, we all know the familiar whiff, but Earl of East go further, advertising the ‘heady fusion of salt popcorn, foam banana and glistening hot dog, enveloped in a fug of recirculated air. A waft of cloistered contraband chicken meets the allium tang of adolescent boredom, laced with juicy notes of melting slushie syrup. An evocative blend, with just the faintest whisper of third base in the back row’
All the candles are available online and are made in collaboration with Uncommon Creative Studio, who have brought together artists and writers to bring the tongue-in-cheek creations to life.
The proceeds will go to support the hospitality industry, a cause close to our hearts, and so we urge you, if you’re missing a festival, your local or a real cinematic experience, light a candle instead…