What’s cooler than a Dior Saddle bag? A Loewe Tomato candle.
A Rolex, Patek Philippe, or Audemars Piguet peeking from beneath a cuff revealed that you’ve worked hard and played hard, too. Likewise, a Chanel 2.55 Flap, Dior Saddle, or Fendi Baguette suggested a cultivated elegance. Either way, these objects signified more than wealth, but something that’s much less attainable: taste.
Lately, however, it seems like those signifiers have shifted – dare I say slipped – within the hierarchy of what is considered refined. The language of taste has slowly been migrating inward, no longer just worn but displayed in our homes.
It began, curiously enough, with a hand wash – I suspect you already know which one I’m referencing before I state it – Aesop’s Resurrection Aromatique Hand Wash. Introduced in 2006 by the Australian brand, it formed part of the wider Resurrection Aromatique line, carrying its signature citrus and herbaceous profile through a blend of orange, lavender, and rosemary oils. By its own description, it has since become “the most coveted hand soap in the world.”
The evidence is difficult to refute. Step into any design-conscious restaurant or impeccably curated hotel, and you are likely to encounter it in the bathroom. Its presence has become so culturally coded that it no longer signals cleanliness or quality, but a certain aesthetic literacy – one that, increasingly, extends even to the selling of homes.
“We started noticing in Melbourne that if someone has their home on the market, they’ll put some Aesop hand wash in there before showing prospective buyers,» Kate Forbes, Aesop’s general manager of products, research and development, told Esquire in 2019.
At the height of the “shelfie” era – an Instagram-born phenomenon of the 2010s in which bathroom cabinets were meticulously staged and photographed for social media – any image of consequence invariably featured the same hand wash. That spurred a wave of luxury lifestyle brands to launch their own, in a bid to fill the demand Aesop had created. Malin + Goetz leaned into its cult-favourite Rum hand wash; Le Labo championed Basil; Grown Alchemist found a bestseller in its Invigorate formula – a fitting successor for hands already, ostensibly, “resurrected.”
The appetite for $50-and-up handwash only grew with the onset of the first lockdown, when expendable income that would usually be spent outside the home was used for everything in it, contributing to the rise of luxury bodycare sales.
With that came the desire to further accessorize, and therefore these same brands, alongside a growing cohort of competitors, started pushing candles. According to the research group Kantar, sales of scented candles and essential oils for diffusers jumped 29 percent in October 2020.
Loewe, for instance, has become nearly as synonymous with its candles as with its ready-to-wear; the September launch of its tomato iteration briefly captivated the zeitgeist, elevating the tart nightshade into an unlikely object of olfactory desire. Meanwhile, Cent.Ldn – launched in 2020 while founder Hayley Mack was furloughed from her brand strategy job in London – quickly secured retail partnerships with Selfridges and KITH for its boombox and gin bottle-shaped candles. The brand made £100,000 (approx. $134,000) in revenue in the business’ first year. That spring, fragrance brand Boys Smells had a 1,200 percent increase in wholesale order volume.
As well as being deemed a home luxury, these beautifully-designed candles offered ready-made Instagram content at a time when daily life afforded little else worth documenting. (That was also the case for perfumes, too, which also saw sales spike in the latter half of 2020.) And, of course, the rise in luxury hand wash was inextricably tied to a moment when the act of washing one’s hands took on near-ritualistic importance.
There is, of course, the matter of accessibility. Traditional signifiers of taste have, over time, become more attainable – aspirational consumers are increasingly willing to save for sartorial purchases, inevitably diluting their once-exclusive aura (recent price escalations from the major houses may yet recalibrate that balance). But the psychology differs when it comes to the repeatedly consumed. Would the same buyer indulge, again and again, in something inherently transient? Unlikely. Those with the means, however, can absorb that cadence of spending with ease – and in doing so, reinforce a marker of distinction.
Marketing, too, plays a decisive role in conferring this sense of taste. Aesop and Loewe carefully position themselves at the intersection of art, literature, and design, imbuing otherwise mundane rituals – washing one’s hands, scenting a room – with cultural weight. To add to that, ingredient provenance is of the highest quality and often touted so.
Perhaps it’s that these products can only exist in the home that adds to it. Wearing designer clothing out and about forces people to notice, and that could be perceived as flashy or gaudy. Having signifiers in your home that only those you’re close enough with will see has a subtlety to it, in the same vein as the ‘quiet luxury’ trend in fashion. As the adage goes: money talks, but wealth whispers.
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