Candles made of ice? Are you mad?

We can rarely resist the lure of Mathmos’s uber cool Old Street store but on our last visit our eyes were caught by these seemingly impossible illuminations.Dubbed Thaw they consist of a gleaming holder and a silicon mould for fashioning the ice candle. The flamey bit is handled by a humble tea light but when housed in its icy home it takes on an other-wordly, ethereal glow.Mathmos reckon they’ll last three hours before ending in a molten end-of-The-Snowman mess. Then just freeze up a fresh batch. Perfect for those ice sculpture-daubed vodka parties we’re always throwing.