A desk at home is a difficult place. It sits right in the middle of where you rest, so when you open the laptop, half your mind is still in breakfast and half in the housework not yet done. Many of you message us that the hardest part is not the working but the beginning.
Scent helps at exactly that point. If each day you begin your working session with the same small act, lighting a candle, setting a diffuser reed, dropping two drops of essential oil into a bowl of warm water, then after about two weeks that movement becomes a signal. Your mind recognises it and shifts into working mode by itself, like the bell of a classroom.
Where to put it and when to light it
We usually suggest placing the candle jar diagonally from where you sit, about an arm's length away, behind the keyboard rather than right under your nose. At that distance the scent comes to you in gentle waves with the air of the room, and you hear it without it taking all your attention. Placed too close, the scent thickens, and after an hour your nose grows so used to it that you no longer notice.
As for the hour, we tend to light it at the start of a session and in the heaviest part of the afternoon, around two to four o'clock. Soy wax blended by ZUNGZA needs about fifteen minutes for its surface to heat evenly and for the scent to come up to its rhythm, so light the candle and open your work straight away; by the time you are in your stride, the scent is just ready.
With a desk set inside a bedroom, there is one thing worth noticing. The scent you use for working is best kept different from the scent you use for sleeping, even if only a little. Two different signals for two different things, and your small room gains two habits that way.
How to care for scent through long working sessions
On days when you sit at the desk from morning to night, one candle burning continuously will make the scent in the room thicken gradually. What we do is burn in rounds of two to three hours, then blow it out and open the window for a few minutes. Between rounds, a reed diffuser keeps the base of scent for the room, light and asking for nobody's attention.
The cotton wick should be trimmed to about five millimetres before each lighting. A neat wick gives a small, even flame with no soot, so your room stays clean in both scent and air. A two hundred gram jar goes about thirty-five to forty hours, which works out to around a month and a half for someone working at home regularly.
And if you are in many meetings and often have the camera on, a diffuser is more convenient. It asks you to remember nothing, there is no flame to watch, and you turn the reeds whenever the scent in the room seems fainter than you like.
A few questions you often send us
Which direction of scent should I choose for working
Choose the direction that makes you feel awake and light, usually those with the clean note of leaves and plants and a little edge in the middle. More important than anything is that you use it regularly, so it becomes the signal for starting work.
Can I burn a candle all day
It is better to burn in rounds of two to three hours and then let the candle rest, both to keep the wax surface burning evenly and to leave your nose able to hear the scent. And always put the candle out when you leave the room.
Does the scent travel faster in an air-conditioned room
The draught from the air conditioner will pull the scent in one direction, so stand the jar where the draught does not catch it directly, and avoid placing it right under the vent.
Read more scents for the bedroom and the living room, one candle jar in a small apartment, and choosing between essential oil and a diffuser.