Scented candles get a lot of love around here — but tapers deserve some, too. With their long, elegant shape, they can function as a sculptural object, at home on a mantelpiece or credenza when unlit. But where they really shine is as part of a table setting, nestled among water glasses and serving bowls, slowly dripping down to nothing over the stretch of a dinner party.
To find out which tapers are worth buying, I reached out to interior designers, avid hosts, home-goods store owners, and other candle obsessives to learn about their favorites. Then I categorized them by material: either natural beeswax (which burn for longer but are generally more expensive) or paraffin (which are a bit faster to go through but cheaper). And if you’re in the market for candleholders, check out our recommendations for those, too.
Best natural beeswax taper candles
These tapers from Danica, hand-dipped in mid-coast Maine, got more recommendations than any other on this list. Recipe developer and food stylist Chloe Walsh says they don’t drip too intensely and will last a whole evening. Jenny Kaplan, owner of creative agency An Aesthetic Pursuit, calls the range of colors in the collection “really beautiful.” “I love that you can mix and match them to add some dimension to your table setting,” she says. Alisha Ramos, founder and writer of Downtime, is also a fan. “They’re incredibly decently priced given how many are in a box,” she says (this is especially true for beeswax candles, which are more expensive to produce than paraffin). “They’re my everyday candles, and less so my pretty display candles.” Food writer and recipe developer Anna Stockwell loves them, too. “The Danica website is the most old-fashioned website ever and a major pain in the butt to use,” she says, “but they ship superfast.”
If you’re looking for candles that will burn for hours, take a note from de Lisle: “I have bought church candles through General Wax in L.A. for years, both tapers and the ones in glass jars” he says. “The candles made for churches last longest and burn clean” — perfect for dinner parties. General Wax bills the candles as “a favorite among religious institutions for decades.”
Both Sandeep Salter, owner of New York City’s Salter House, and Kalen Kaminski, founder of the glassware and textiles company Upstate, are partial to Massachusetts-based Beverly Bees. Kaminski likes the deep-yellow natural hue of the candles and says the burn lasts all evening. Salter also says she’s “drawn to the color” and calls the smell of the melting honeybee wax “divine.” Both experts mentioned they appreciate that the company rescues bees from extermination and rehabilitates them in their hives.
For an easy Amazon option, Stockwell’s go-tos are these Bluecorn beeswax candles. She buys them in bulk to always have on hand. Strategist senior editor Hilary Reid likes the color options: “They’re vibrant, and a few — like the eggplant, red, and burgundy — feel especially wintery,” she says. “They come to a nice point at the top that stays in shape as they burn, which I think gives them a dressier and more elegant feel.”
Greentree Candles’ colorful tapers are Salter’s “number one go-to” for their natural beeswax scent and the range of available shades and sizes, including that shorter six inches. “Color is important to me when selecting candles — I love naturally dyed beeswax, and I am very into darker colored wax, like black and burgundy,” she says. “I also cannot resist a robin’s-egg blue candle. It’s so regal.” Recipe developer and cookbook author Melina Hammer has these tapers out “on repeat, front and center, when guests are over,” she says. “They look substantial and classic.” And recipe developer and cookbook author Alexis deBoschnek loves them so much, she always has them on hand and even used them at her wedding last summer. “The candles have just the right amount of drippiness to feel romantic, without leaving you with a mess on your table,” she says.
Prop and interiors stylist Kira Corbin sets out Big Dipper Wax Works’ candles on her dinner table. They sell them at her local grocer, so she can buy them in a pinch — but more than the convenience, she likes that they are natural. “If you’re burning something, you’re ultimately breathing it in,” she says. “Also, the scent is very subtle and works well with dining.” The color options here are great, too, with some even more vivid options than the Greentree candles above.
“I’ve never smelled a better beeswax candle,” says Strategist senior editor Simone Kitchens. She likens the scent to sweet natural honey — but not in an overpowering way. They’re made by monks in New York State and “burn very clean,” she says.
Strategist writer Katherine Gillespie’s recent obsession is tiny taper candles, which are exactly what they sound like. The very thin sticks were a 1960s trend popularized by mid-century design house Dansk. Though they require specialty holders (Gillespie gives some recommendations in her piece), they’re a fun and surprising way to set the mood.
Best paraffin-wax taper candles
While beeswax has the benefit of being all-natural and smelling great, paraffin wax is known for being clean-burning (meaning it won’t leave behind soot) and not creating smoke. “I burn a lot of candles — normally I have ten or more going per night — so I like to buy in bulk,” says real-estate agent and candle obsessive Robert Khederian, who has written about the wax he uses to keep his tapered candles in place for the Strategist. If you, too, want to stock up on candlesticks, Khederian suggests this pack of 11-inch Bolsius tapers, which come in a pack of 50. Khederian says that each candle lasts for about ten hours, and should you invest, the cost works out to be less than $1 a candle.
Three of the interior designers we spoke to recommended the Floral Society’s taper paraffin-wax candles, which come in 12- and 18-inch heights and burn without dripping. EyeSwoon’s Athena Calderone is partial to the taller ones. “These are my favorite tapers for their elongated elegance,” she says. “They’re perfect for elevating your tablescape or adding verticality to a vignette. They are available in a wide range of colors and burn slowly, at about an inch per hour. I always have extras on hand!” Interior designer Dane Pressner is particularly drawn to tapers that actually taper toward the top. “I love them to look like they were made by hand,” he says. Never one to shy away from drama, he also “always buys ones that are at least 18 inches in height.” Pressner goes for the candles in darker colors, and says that lately he’s been burning lots of black and dark-blue tapers at his country house. Interior designer Elizabeth Roberts, who also recommended tapers from the brand, prefers the 12-inch height in a lighter shade. “All of the colors are beautiful but greige is a particularly perfect noncolor,” she says. “It looks very natural, so that you really see the beautiful shape of the candle and the flame — and they burn slowly and do not drip, to boot.” The fact that the pair comes together on one braided wick adds to the appeal, too.
Private chef and recipe developer Maddy DeVita prefers the classic white and ivory versions of these tapers, though they come in a variety of muted tones, too. “I like how they taper subtly for a soft, elegant aesthetic,” she says. And — key for DeVita — they don’t give off any scent that will compete with dinner.
DeVita’s other favorite candles come from Northern Lights. “These guys are scentless, smokeless, and dripless,” she says. “Sometimes you want the more rustic aesthetic of the candle wax dripping down, but for a clean look, dripless candles are key. They also have a burn time of 13 hours so your party can truly go all night long with out any risk of burnout.”
Annie Selke’s Palette Taper Candles come in several color sets (the Citrus is pictured here, but there’s also a primary-colored one and another with fall hues). Reid, who owns them in shades of blue, says they feel very sturdy, don’t drip, and have a laid-back vibe thanks to the fact that they stay flat-topped as they burn down.
Rebekah Peppler, author of À Table, burns these dripless and smokeless candles on the regular. “Like most writers, I have a few rituals that get me to my desk/dining room table,” she says. “One of my favorites is setting up a few candles the night before. Something about lighting them before sitting down and getting straight into it often makes for my best work.” She mixes and matches ones in differing heights for a bit of visual drama.
[Editor’s note: These candles are listed in euros, so the price shown is an approximate conversion in U.S. dollars.]
Interior designer Jamie Bush recommended these Royal Design candles, which are made in Denmark “through repeated hand-dippings, upwards of 30 times,” he tells us. Thanks to that repetition, the candles have a particularly tapered tip. Plus, they’ll last through even your longer dinners, without making a mess. “The candles burn without any drip and have a slower, cleaner burn with less smoke emitted than other candles,” says Bush.
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