Picture an October evening, one lamp on, something dark and fruity going on the side table. That's where Forbidden Fig lives for its fans. One Reddit regular calls it their go-to evening candle, others name it a favorite next to French Cade Lavender or Moso Bamboo, and someone who doesn't even burn it still calls it the crowd-pleaser of the line, the one everybody likes.
It joined the Japonica collection in 2022, in a deep cranberry take on the line's woodblock-print pattern, with notes of ripened fig, fig leaf, velvety musk and midnight rose. What people mostly smell is the fig. A candle YouTuber who adores fig candles found it fresh and true, heavy on green vine with the fruit behind it, but fairly linear, with the rose and musk staying in the supporting cast; she rates Anthropologie's own fig candle and Kringle's Crimson & Clover as similar and a bit more interesting. A blogger working through a 4 oz tin describes a dark fruit scent, a nicer cousin of the Bath & Body Works fruit candles, that grew on her with every burn and smelled better lit than in the tin. Bloomingdale's shoppers call it a balance of fruity and earthy.
Small tin, big room?
Throw splits people sharply. That blogger was startled by how hard her little tin pushed: it filled a large room and drifted across an open floor plan. One Reddit commenter had small jars that threw beautifully and still couldn't stand the smell. On the other side, a Reddit post says it smells great but only with your nose over the flame, and a TikTok commenter who bought it on a creator's recommendation found it barely scented. If you want the best odds, the YouTuber trusts the shallow 3-wick tin ($32 for roughly 40 hours) most.
Otherwise the range climbs from a $24 Small Jar and the $34 Classic (60 hours) to the $38 big jar (100 hours) and two hearths, $90 and $250. Sephora's reviews average 4.5 stars across 114 ratings, and an advent-calendar fan liked it burning beside Baltic Amber for an autumn mood that skips the pumpkin. If you go big, you're in good company: one owner keeps a 5-wick Forbidden Fig parked on the floor like a piece of furniture.
