GOT A LIGHT?

If it's cool for Sofia, it's cool for us. Plus, it smells like 'the moon.'

If you know anything about perfume, you know the epicenter of its industry is in France. But the country’s most historic candle maker is just as much an expert on cool aromas.

Cire Trudon, the company that once made candles for the court of Versailles, is now changing the way we perfume our rooms. They’re responsible for bringing you candles from Hermes, Dior, and Cartier, who all trust their secret antique formula to encase their signature scents.

But now, they’re also responsible for a range of candles inspired by elements of French history, with scents more original than any we’ve ever smelled.

The fragrances range from the bizarre (Dada, for the Dada art movement), to the regal (Roi Soleil for Louis XIV), to the very bizarre (Odeur de Lune, or Scent of the Moon).

According to Phillipe Parreno, the artist who created “Odeur de Lune,” the Moon smells like metalized sulphur, kerosene, black coal, and smoked seasoned wood. The notes are supposedly derived from the “reports written by NASA on the rockets landing from their mission to the Moon.”  How…scientifique?

Meanwhile, if you want something a little more normal, there’s also a candle derived from Marie Antoinette’s Petit Triannon.  It smells like flowers, and Kirsten and Sofia actually used it on-set.
--SABRINA BACON

$75, each, at Cire Trudon in Paris or Barney’s New York.



This story was published on July 15, 2008.