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Allow me to set the scene: The sun has just set, the day is done, and you’re looking to unwind after hours of tireless remote work. You figure a scented candle might set the mood, so you grab the one you bought after seeing it on that Instagrammer’s feed you hate-follow. You pull out your pocket lighter and find that, having been halfway burned, the candle’s wick is difficult to reach.
You stick your hand in the glass, but you burn your thumb before you reach the wick. You flip the candle upside down and try to light it that way, but the candle dislodges and tumbles to the floor. You look at the naked hunk of wax on the floor. When, exactly, did everything in your life start to go so wrong?
The answer: when you reached for that lighter instead of a match.
When you flip a candle upside down to ignite it with a lighter, or shove a lighter into a candle’s narrow glass container, you’re asking that lighter to do something it was never designed to do. Pocket lighters are for things you smoke, not for candles—not for anything else, really. Long-reach lighters are more versatile, but the majority of them aren’t refillable, nor are they particularly nice to look at.
But matches—especially those long and slender ones—can do everything a lighter can do, only better and more beautifully.
Matches have an unimpeachable air of sophistication. They were (and still are, although not nearly as often) tokens from past hotel stays or visits to restaurants both humble and tony. Their packaging is fun to look at, but unboxed matches can be just as appealing, their brightly colored heads arranged in a small holder like a bouquet. There’s a sensory pleasure to lighting a match: the crackle and hiss, the aromatic pinch of sulfur dioxide. Matches utilize a simple, ancient technology and they’re a practical piece of decor: something you can leave out in the open to admire, but also put to good use.
Have a look at some of our favorite matches and match accessories below: Elegant, long-stemmed fireplace matches for hard-to-reach wicks, vintage matchbooks fit to satisfy your inner phillumenist, and few clever match display options that will elevate even a regular bunch of red-topped matches.
