Tania Gonzalez, a freelance makeup artist from Algonquin, Illinois, bought over 35 candles last year.
A voracious candle user who in pre-Covid times would even bring her own on business trips, Gonzalez turned to holiday and tropical-themed candles to get through the past year. She would scour the grocery store, T.J. Maxx, Bath & Body Works, and more for home scents to keep ablaze. Among her three dozen new additions: the Kiwi Passionfruit candle from Bath & Body Works and Yankee Candle’s Balsam Forest, which smells like a thicket of pine trees in winter.
Instead of a travel comfort or an evening ritual, candles became an all-day habit for Gonzalez. "It's something I do in the afternoon as well –– or even when I'm getting ready [in the morning] to set the mood and get my mindset right, for calming or whatever the need is at the moment," she tells