You may be wondering why you can make a candle at home for a few bucks, but have to spend $30+ to get a nice one in the store. It mostly has to do with exotic scents and proven burn times. The scents, per ounce, are definitely the most expensive ingredient of candle making. To source those harder-to-find smells takes time and money. Yankees, and other luxury brands, also use special production methods that guarantee long burn times; when you calculate hours of use (which you can think of as price-per-use), the effective cost is actually much lower. Yes, they’re expensive, but they also tend to have unique, stronger scents and they last longer.