Byredo’s Ben Gorham collaborates with Ikea to make “Osynlig,” a $5 luxe candle collection

Sure, 2020 may go down in history as one of the worst years on record, but beginning in November, it will also officially be the year in which $5 Byredo candles became A Thing. So, it’s not all bad!

Keep in mind, these luxe candles are usually only for the high-end set, retailing for $85 to $120.  Yes, for a candle.  But now, Ben Gorham, the founder of the and creative director of the cool-kid beloved fragrance company teamed up with Ikea to create “Osynlig,” a collection of 13 cozy, home-inspired scents priced between $5 and $25, just in time for the holiday gift-giving season.

While Byredo’s candles are aspirational (with an aspirational price tag), during a press event announcing the collaboration, Gorham said he’d been wanting to make more accessibly priced offerings for some time: “I’ve been interested in making products available to as many people as possible… I felt that [Ikea] was one of the few [retailers] that I could collaborate with and actually develop and manufacture a product of this quality and make it available at this price point. That’s one of the unique facets of Ikea’s approach and competency.”

A years-long collaborative process between Gorham and Ikea went into fine-tuning the scents, which came about after intensive research, crowdsourcing and “home visits” to build out a fragrance collection that would have broad appeal for people around the globe. “Byredo has worked in a very personal, subjective manner when it comes to translating memories into smells,” Gorham said. “In this project with Ikea, not only have I been able to utilize the philosophies of the Ikea organization and structure, we’ve also been able to approach the idea of smell in the home as a completely democratic process, involving many hundreds of people and creators and focus groups to understand how we can create a system or spectrum of smells that appeal to many, many people.”

The resulting collection has been a long time coming in other ways, too: “Being born and raised in Sweden, Ikea has essentially been a part of my life since birth,” Gorham added. While he shied away from naming a favorite scent from the collection, he did note that “they’re all very unique and they’re the result of a much bigger idea, the result of all homes smelling unique. I try not to skew the idea of what will do well and what people will try first. I try to get people to have an open mind and try the fragrances for themselves.”

Although they don’t come housed in the signature minimalist, black-and-white holders for which Byredo is known, the Osynlig candles are certainly aesthetically pleasing in their own right, clad in lidded handmade ceramic vessels, each glazed with “a blend of two colors, chosen by Ben, that represent the ingredients used in [them],” according to a press release. They were designed to be both appealing in design and able to camouflage into one’s home, without drawing focus; they’re also meant to be re-used for storage once the candle has burned through.

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Photo Credit: Daria Minaeva / Shutterstock.com