If a candle smells loud for 10 minutes then disappears — or worse, leaves you with a tight forehead — it's usually not the fragrance. It's the wax and the cheap oils riding on top of it.

Paraffin is a petroleum byproduct. A lot of mass-market candles still use it because it's cheap and it throws scent fast. That "throw" is often synthetic fragrance hitting you all at once. Your nose gets it. Your sinuses get it too.

What I look for instead:

• A plant wax base (soy or a soy blend), not paraffin

• Fragrance that doesn't punch you in the face in the first five minutes

• A cotton wick, trimmed, so you're not breathing soot

• A scent that still feels like the room an hour later — not a cloud that vanished

Clean fragrance should recede into the background. You notice it when you walk back in. You shouldn't notice it as a headache.

That's the bar for Mondal. If you've been burned by "natural" candles that still smell like a mall, that's the problem I'm solving.