Gift Giving Guy

Enter the upstairs study in our home, and you’ll see a treadmill, an iMac poised on a corner workstation, books on a credenza and a writing desk — all on hardwood floors. In other words, it’s a room collecting sweat and dust. My wife suggested I should get a “manly scented candle” to freshen up the study.

My first reaction was laughter. Nervous laughter. There is no such thing as a manly scented candle, I professed. As definitive proof, I summoned Google on the iMac and typed in manly candle, confident that I could count the search results on both hands.

Google humbled me. There were some 481,000 results for manly candles.

Mandles.

I clicked the first link and discovered the Manly Man Candle Company. The company’s name was set in maroon military stencil, flanked by angry bulls. The site declares it’s all about “[c]andles that were designed and developed with guys in mind. None of the ‘froo froo’ garbage, these are smells that guys like.” These white candles (and they only come in white) sit in a metal tin, suitable for storing nails, screws and washers when the candle is gone. Prices are $5 for 4 ounces, $7 for 8 ounces, and $13 for 16 ounces.

(Update on July 5, 2010: The Manly Man Candle Company is no longer in business. Try Mandles instead.)

The most popular Manly Man Candle scents to date:

1. The Hunting Lodge: “A strong, woody outdoor scent accented by cedar…. Think back to your favorite cabin….”
2. Wild Alaska: “A great outdoor scent” of pine that “doesn’t leave you thinking about pine cleaners.”
3. Alpine: “Rain forest meets the alpine tundra…. It is not sweet and definitely not flowery.”
4. Leather: “From a fine sports car to working gloves, the fresh smell of leather is always good to the nose.”
5. The Coffee Shop: “This isn’t one of those sweet coffee smells that you find in most common candles, rather a good plain cup of joe.”
6. Irish Springtime: “Will definitely remind you of a bar of Irish Spring…. There isn’t that soapy or sweet smell…”
7. Yardwork: “This one smells like fresh cut grass.” “One of our company’s founders starts sneezing whenever he smells this candle.”

So would I appreciate one of these mandles as a gift? Yeah, probably. The Hunting Lodge, Leather or The Coffee Shop might be welcome in the upstairs study. Sometimes the best gifts are those you might like but you wouldn’t think of buying for yourself.