The original. The one and only.
$54.50
We're thrilled to be featured in two noteworthy publications this quarter— The New York Times Wirecutter and Eater!
A leading source of independent product reviews, Wirecutter named Keap Candles Wood Cabin as one of their top picks and "the warmest and woodsiest of them all". We're honored to be recognized again for the quality of our candles (previously, Lavender + Petals made the list in the fresh and floral department), as well as our sustainability values and purpose.
We were also written up in Eater for our presence in some of the best restaurants in NYC. They named Wood Cabin a "modern classic as far as bathroom candles go." We're so proud to be discovered in the spaces of our wonderful restaurant partners.
Much gratitude to Wirecutter editors Joshua Lyon and Dorie Chevlen for putting us on their top candles list, as well as Bettina Makalintal from Eater for writing about the Wood Cabin bathroom candle trend. And special thanks to our community of Keapers who spread the word about us. This couldn't have happened without you!
Read the full stories below.
Top Pick — Keap Wood Cabin Candle
by Joshua Lyon and Dorie Chevlen
A candle that sensorially transports you to a forest in autumn and leaves you with a killer scotch-on-the-rocks tumbler.
When we published this guide in 2021, Keap Wood Cabin Candle was one of our original top picks, but we removed it when the company turned to a mostly subscription-based business, with rotating monthly scents. But along with two other candles, Wood Cabin is still always available for purchase, and it's such an olfactory powerhouse that we had to bring it back.
A scent that smells like its name. Anyone who's ever lived in a home with a woodstove will recognize this candle's roots, along with enchanting new layers like nutmeg, pine, and smoky guaiacwood, and that adds a touch of spice. The overall effect is like spending a day peeping autumn foliage, crunching through crisp leaves, and coming home to a warm fire. As our original guide described it, you can almost feel a Pendleton wool blanket being draped across your shoulders.
A different kind of company.In 2021, Keap shut down the brand’s social media accounts, choosing instead to build relationships with their customers through newsletters, handwritten notes in each candle, pricing transparency, and topnotch customer service. It’s a thoughtful approach to commerce that’s much like the act of burning a candle itself — considered, quiet, and intimate.
Subscriptions get you a discount. There are a number of subscription options you can pick from, all of which get you free shipping and a discount from the full retail price. You can also skip or gift a shipment whenever you want.
Try before you buy. Keap offers a $19 tester set of five tealights, made up of their three always available scents — wood cabin, wild figs, and timur moon— and samples of the next two seasonal monthly scents that are available to subscribers. The candles burn for two hours each and come in a small bag with a box of matches. If you decide to become a subscriber, the cost of the sample set goes towards your first candle, and we think this tester set also makes for a lovely little gift.
The container is the most reusable of all our picks. Keap’s vessels are actual glassware, made by a German family-owned company. And Keap uses beeswax instead of an adhesive to secure their wicks to the bottom, which makes preparing the glass for use a breeze.
Flaws but not dealbreakers: Wood Cabin is on the pricier side, but you’re supporting a small business with strong sustainability values and an unwavering commitment to their customers. One of our guide authors has been a subscriber since 2018 and vouches for their excellent customer service.
- Scent notes: cade juniper, cedar wood, wet moss, nutmeg, guaiacwood, burnt pine
- Sizes: 7.4 ounces
- Wax type: coconut wax
- Average cost per ounce: $7.30 to (non-subscribers); $6.30 (subscribers)
Meet the ‘It’ Candle of NYC Restaurant Bathrooms
This woody, cozy-smelling candle has a standing reservation at many of New York City’s hottest restaurants
By Bettina Makalintal
It’s in the bathroom at Smithereens, and it’s in rotation at Cervo’s, Eel Bar, Hart’s, and the Fly. It’s at June Wine Bar and Rhodora. I knew Schmuck smelled familiar — and then, yep, there it was. I swear I’ve sniffed it at Tatiana, though my email asking for confirmation went unanswered. An Eater colleague clocked it at Elsa, and immediately bought one of her own (and then received another as a Christmas gift).
Sophisticated but not overwhelming, recognizably branded but not flashy, it’s the Wood Cabin candle from Keap, and in New York City restaurants, it’s become a modern classic as far as bathroom candles go.
Both Nick Tamburo of Smithereens and Moe Aljaff of Schmuck wanted Wood Cabin after smelling it at other restaurants. For Aljaff, that was, specifically, Cervo’s, he said in an email: “I remember walking into their bathroom and thinking it smelled unusually good, which is not a thought you normally have in a restaurant bathroom.” With notes of cedar, palo santo, and fireside embers, it offers a “romantic, transportive quality” that pairs well the “the small, cloistered, and intimate rooms” of his subterranean restaurant, according to Tamburo.
Wood Cabin, which was launched in 2015, is Keap's most popular scent. The owners of June Wine Bar have been fans of the company since its days as a small, Brooklyn-founded brand (it’s now based in the Hudson Valley town of Kingston) and have used the candle since June opened. It’s the first restaurant where Keap owner Harry Doull smelled his candles in the wild.
“Our work with restaurants started organically and that’s still the case for the most part,” wrote Doull in an email. Hospitality clients, including restaurants, make up just shy of 10 percent of the company’s sales, though for some businesses “we offer bulk pricing and have developed ways to be better partners over time,” he explained. Doull, who grew up in a restaurant family, thinks the places that use Keap tend to share similar values around hospitality, artisanal production, and sustainability; restaurants can send back their empty glass vessels for Keap to reuse.
In NYC, there’s a referential quality to stocking your bathroom with a candle as commonplace as Wood Cabin; for some people, that’s actually part of the draw. “I’m skeptical of originality,” Aljaff wrote. “Most places that claim to be original are usually just louder about it. What we do is create a room made by what we’ve been inspired by and various details we like — from restaurants, bars, films, music, art, conversations, bathrooms — and put them together in a way that feels coherent.”
Keap calls its candles “natural luxury.” At $54.50 for a single candle, that luxury is a little easier to stomach than even bougier options like, say, Le Labo or Diptyque — especially when, as June continues to experience, diners still occasionally steal the candle.
