the slow-burn edit —
Best Candle & Incense Brands
to shop in Australia, twelve makers worth lighting
From hand-poured soy candles scented with native botanicals to pure-wood Japanese-style incense sticks, this is the guide to the best candle and incense brands in Australia, with the real scent notes, burn times and ingredients that separate a good buy from a great one.
Australia has some of the best scented candles and natural incense in the world, using ingredients almost nobody else has: wild-harvested sandalwood from the Western Australian goldfields, lemon myrtle, boronia, Tasmanian mountain pepper and giant fern. Whether you are hunting for the best Australian candle brands, the best incense to buy online, or an Australian-made home fragrance gift, the question is the same: what is actually in the wax, or in the smoke?
This edit pairs six luxury candle brands with six incense houses, alternating between the two, covering soy candles, essential-oil incense, sandalwood incense and Japanese incense sticks. Every scent note and burn time below comes from the maker’s own product information.
The Twelve
six candles, six incense, one very good shelf
Founded by Sydney perfumer Craig Andrade, The Raconteur makes the Australian candle that reads like a bushwalk. Every hand-poured soy wax candle is built on native botanical fragrance, with cotton wicks, no paraffin, parabens, phthalates or lead, and a burn time of up to 60 hours. The Byron Bay Candle layers native thyme, lemon myrtle, rosalina and cinnamon myrtle, while Bondi 2 Giant Fern pairs native giant fern with eucalyptus and wild herbs. A natural first stop for the best Australian soy candles.
Born in Melbourne in 1987, Aesop brings its apothecary sensibility to incense with the Aromatique Incense collection, developed with perfumer Barnabé Fillion and a Kyoto-based incense atelier and named after Heian-period female authors. Murasaki is warm hinoki, cinnamon and clove; Kagerou is green and earthy with vetiver, igusa and sandalwood. Each box holds 33 sticks and a Kanuma pumice holder, and each stick burns for about 30 minutes: luxury incense sticks that look as good as they smell.
Goldfield & Banks is Australia’s native-sandalwood perfumer, and its home fragrance carries the same ambition. The Land of Gold Candle is inspired by the sunburnt goldfields of Western Australia, built around wild-harvested Australian sandalwood that unfolds raw and resinous over a base of Haitian vetiver and Paraguayan guaiac wood. Created by founder Dimitri Weber, it is warm, woody and quietly commanding: a serious luxury scented candle for a living room or study.
Addition Studio is an Australian design house built around calm, daily ritual, and its incense is the most accessible way in. Made in Australia and scented with essential oils, the range includes Mandarin, Lime & Basil (mandarin, sandalwood, lime, basil and aniseed), Blue Gum & Lemon Myrtle and Cedarwood, Sage & Geranium. Sold as 15-stick sets with a holder or as refill envelopes, they pair beautifully with the brand’s sculptural stone Horizon Incense Burner.
Founded in 2013 by Nathan and Kristine Brown and based in Williamstown, SOH Melbourne is a fragrance house for people who want a candle with a story. Its 350g candles burn for 70-plus hours in a blend of Australian soy, beeswax and candle-grade paraffin. Greenhouse is green and dark fig over amber and sandalwood, formulated in Grasse; Agape layers wood, moss, rum, patchouli and leather; Bondi smells of sea salt, sea air, Australian amber and geranium.
Often searched as Tribe incense, Tribe Earth has been run by Western Australian husband-and-wife team Gary and Kim Newton since 2003. Its handmade incense planks are 100% plant material, with no glues, no essential oils and no artificial fragrance: snap off a piece and burn it in a fireproof dish for 20 to 40 minutes. Renew pairs WA sandalwood with fragonia for a bright, citrusy lift; Bushwalk adds marri tree resin for earthy depth; Presence blends sandalwood and vetiver.
Founded in 2013 by creative director Almira Armstrong, Lumira makes destination-inspired soy candles in ebony glass, scented with fine fragrance oils and made in Australia. Balinese Ylang Ylang is the signature: ylang ylang, bergamot and sandalwood for romance and relaxation. Persian Rose moves from mandarin and bergamot through Persian rose and geranium to musk, patchouli and dark amber. It is a dependable luxury candle gift that always looks the part.
Launched in 2018 by Nippon Kodo, whose incense heritage dates to 1575, Kitowa is Japan’s first maison fragrance brand, and its Japanese incense is built on natural Japanese wood oils. Incense Hinoki combines Mie cypress oil with sandalwood, geranium and iris; Incense Hiba pairs Aomori hiba oil with tonka bean, pine needles and tea tree; Incense Kusunoki brings Yakushima camphor with bergamot, orange and grapefruit. Each box has 40 sticks, a stand and a roughly 30-minute burn.
Launched in 2023 by Melbourne-based brothers Troye Sivan and Steele Mellet, Tsu Lange Yor takes its name from the Yiddish toast “to long years”. Its soy wax candles burn for around 42 hours and smell unmistakably Australian. TLY 5755, created with Craig Andrade of The Raconteur, opens on cashmere and Tasmanian mountain pepper before cedarwood, vanilla and Australian buddawood. Sassafras is a Dandenong Ranges forest of juniper berries, native sandalwood and warm leather.
Melbourne’s Subtle Bodies makes the purest natural incense sticks on this list: Japanese-style sticks with two ingredients, a fragrant wood and a natural binder from the tabu-no-ki or brown beech tree, with no added perfume, oils or additives. The hero is Australian Sandalwood from Western Australian plantations, sweet, clear and calming, in boxes of 25 sticks with a 30-minute burn. Vietnamese agarwood and Korean red cedar round out the range.
Family-owned in regional New South Wales, Meeraboo proves a great Australian-made candle doesn’t need a luxury price tag. Candles are hand-poured in 100% natural soy wax with non-toxic Australian fragrance oils, lead-free natural fibre wicks and a reusable glass vessel with a gold lid, and the 330g size burns for over 40 hours. Patchouli & White Musk is earthy and creamy, Lime & Lemongrass is crisp, and English Pear & Freesia is light and romantic.
If the rest of this list leans Japanese, Amod Aromas is the reminder that incense has an older lineage of its own. This Sydney-based house hand-rolls its sticks from wood powder, machilus macranth bark and vapour-distilled essential oils, with no charcoal and no synthetic fragrance. Jardins de l’Inde opens on violet and settles into rose over a creamy tuberose base, luminous and floral. Artisanal Delight goes the other way: mandarin brightness, rosemary and a grounding wash of patchouli. Each set includes a hand-crafted six-sided brass burner, and every stick burns for about 80 minutes. 
How to choose, and your questions answered
Choose a candle for light, warmth and a room that needs a presence; choose incense for a short, focused ritual and a lighter footprint. Start with one of each, a soy candle for the room you live in and a pure-wood incense for the evenings you want to slow down, then build outward.
— light something slowly, and let the room do the rest.