I had enough overpriced candles in my life before Trudon showed up. Diptyque, Comme des Garçons, Jo…read moreMalone, La Note Parisienne, Prada, Byredo, Annick Goutal, Penhaligon's, Etro, Malin + Goetz ― I had more than enough companies offering me high-fallutin' ways that I could literally burn my money (and those are just the ones I took up on the offer). But I fell for the gateway drug of Carrière Frères, the "junior" brand that is, in fact, the company that owns the fancier Trudon. When I found out there was a Trudon boutique in L.A., I was a goner.
You can find the official Cire Trudon history on their website: They became chandlers to the church and monarchy in seventeenth century France, and their wares lit up cathedrals and châteaux. Reading between the lines, it seems the company disappeared sometime in the nineteenth century, after being bought by the Carrière Frères company, only to be resurrected as a brand of high-end luxury scented candles just recently. So Trudon's heritage is both old and, truth told, pretty new. Regarding scented candles, Carrière Frères has a longer history, and their aesthetic is firmly rooted in botanical fragrances: Each scent is modeled closely to a single flower, herb, wood, etc. Their Tomato fragrance, which smells mostly of tomato leaves, is a green and refreshing scent popular for absorbing kitchen odors.
Trudon's main line of candles range from the damp (Balmoral ― the smell of a foggy Scottish moor) to the exotic (Ottoman ― a spice market in the souk) to the suggestively louche (Odalisque ―orange blossom toilet water in a bordello). Even when they weren't exactly my taste, there was no denying their quality. Their price, that was something else, though the gram-per-gram price difference with Diptyque is just pennies in the end.
The store itself is rather spare; compared to the beautiful new renovation at Diptyque's Larchmont boutique, I would hope to see more than the large expanse of largely bare white walls. Design-wise, this is not the flagship store the brand deserves. Service was excellent ― the sales associate (Adam, I believe) was engaged, friendly, and very passionate about the brand. I honestly did not expect to spend $125 on a candle I did not need, but I did. (That, and $65 on a Carrière Frères candle, too.) I had seen Trudon candles in many high-end boutiques around town and really didn't think much of them, but the Trudon boutique turned me around on the brand. Given that I now have another expensive candle brand to burn my money, I'm not sure how I feel about that...