Kamala Harris created candle scent, didn’t want Dem senator to use same one

Something smells funny about this.

Vice President Kamala Harris created her own signature candle scent with a Los Angeles candlemaker — and didn’t want her successor as California’s junior senator to copy it.

The veep’s jasmine-scented candles bear her office’s seal and have been given out as gifts throughout her tenure, prompting others in Washington to want their own.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), impressed by the item, asked creator Melanie Apple Fields “to produce 125 candles using Harris’ scent for an event he was hosting,” the Los Angeles Times reported in a profile of Harris.

“Harris’ office gave Padilla permission to produce a similar candle but asked that he use a different scent,” the article said.

Apple Fields told The Post that Harris’ office waived a non-disclosure agreement to allow her to speak with the LA Times about the candles as part of a feature story on Harris’ trips home to California that described her interest in cooking and growing herbs and kumquats.

“I had an NDA with her — I do have an NDA with her. So I wasn’t allowed to publish anything until this article came out,” said Apple Fields, owner of Voyage et Cie in Tinseltown’s Studio City neighborhood.

“The journalist called me and I said, ‘I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it.’ She said, ‘No, there’s permission,’ and then the head of communications [for Harris] called me and they said it’s OK.”

Apple Fields, who met Harris before she became vice president, said that the initial reporting about what DC staffers are now jokingly calling Candlegate “made it a little more dramatic than it was,” but was broadly accurate.

“[Harris’ office] said, ‘Fine, not a problem, just change the scent’,” Apple Fields told The Post of the interaction with Padilla’s people, adding “they weren’t being mean” about it.

“They’re just exclusively hers and and they’re really beautiful looking.”

Apple Fields says she’s sold “definitely over 2,000” candles to Harris, though she’s unsure of the precise number and said it may top 5,000.

The candles have been given as gifts to the president of El Salvador and King Abdullah II of Jordan, the LA Times reported.

First lady Jill Biden’s office also has purchased specialized candles for nearly three years — again, inspired by the Harris version.

The first lady’s candle bears a golden image of the White House, Apple Fields said, and is gardenia scented.

Padilla, who was appointed to replace Harris following her becoming VP in January 2021, was more interested in the look of the candles than in the scent, a spokesperson for his office told The Post

The rep shared with The Post a December 2022 email from a Padilla staff member to Apple Fields requesting 100 votive candles with boxes and ribbons. The email noted that they were “flexible on scent (variety is okay).”

Apple Fields told The Post that she is a Democrat but tries to keep her business apolitical and that she’s even willing to make personalized candles for some Republicans — just not former President Donald Trump.

“I think he’s a mean guy. I would do it for [Utah Sen.] Mitt Romney, but I wouldn’t do it for Trump. I have to like the person,” she said.

Harris, 59, is the country’s first female and second non-white vice president and is seeking a second four-year term alongside Biden, 81, in this year’s election.

A spokeswoman for Harris did not respond to a request for comment.

The vice president’s policy portfolio has included addressing the root causes of illegal immigration and advocating for voting and abortion rights.