Why I Don’t Use Scented Candles

Hey! I researched this quite extensively. Diffusers do not hear the water enough to destroy the therapeutic property of the oils. When you touch the air front the diffuser, the water is still cool.

We have changed everything in our home using essential oils and couldn’t feel healthier.

Speaking of allergies, ANYTHING can cause an allergic reaction, artificial OR natural……. EVERYTHING has the potential to be an allergen. As a matter of fact, serious reactions often require steroids, and I am ALLERGIC to STEROIDS (leave it to ME!).

I make and sell soy based wax melts. They do not burn, there is no soot, nothing in a wick that might be dangerous etc. and I don’t use any type of additive other than the scent. And as people pointed out above lead wicking is illegal in the US, it CANNOT be imported in candles and hasn’t been used FOR YEARS. If there is a little bit of metal in your wick, it is zinc. But many companies like to scare people by still using the term “lead free” as if that means something. Of course they are lead free, since you cannot buy a lead wick from any supplier in the US, so you probably aren’t buying a candle with one. I’d pretty much guarantee it. High temperature paper has always been the best performing wicks I have ever seen or used to make candles for myself. (I don’t sell candles, just melts.)

The soy wax I use is from a company that is well known for NOT modifying it at the molecular level, and it is grown organically. (Meaning they do not use pesticides. Normally spiders are used to keep pests off of ANYTHING organically grown.) There ARE chemicals that have been used in scented oils in the past, called phytates, that are, AGAIN, illegal in the US as far as I know because I have never found a fragrance supplier PERSONALLY that carries any oil that contains that chemical. My supplier also uses safe plastics for the packaging of their oils. No BPA or other chemicals that leach into the oils.

If you enjoy the SCENT of a candle, and don’t care about the ambient light, just want the scent, then I highly recommend you try melts. And I was a bit confused by the remarks concerning your use of tea lights. A tea light is a burning candle. Do you use beeswax for those? I was just wondering since you didn’t say what type you use. I always recommend and sometimes will carry electric ones because they are cleaner. If you don’t want to burn a candle, then you wouldn’t want to use a tea light to melts your wax tarts either.

Everything you said about paraffin is indeed true. Burning a candle made from paraffin is like putting a small running engine in your house at all times. If you want to BURN a candle, then soy is a good bet if you buy from a reputable business that gets their supplies from a reputable company that has documentation that they are non-gmo and organic, which I do. There is no reason AT ALL to had hardeners or anything to soy to make a harder candle. The way it is processed is what makes it into container candles, or hard enough to be a votive or in my case a “tart” melt. They simply hydrogenate it. And I know that it isn’t safe to EAT hydrogenated oil, but it is perfectly safe to have hydrogenated oils melting in a melter. If you don’t actually know what “hydrogenation” IS, it is simply the use of hydrogen to make it harder. If you take soy oil, hydrogenate it, it becomes shortening; hydrogenate it more it becomes container wax; hydrogenate it more, it becomes pillar/votive/tart wax. And it’s a perfectly safe process. I have had people tell me that it’s impossible to make a soy melt without a hardener but I do it every day! And when I explained this very thing to someone once, and explained that my soy wax that I use has never been CHEMICALLY altered, she proceeded to tell me that hydrogen is INDEED a chemical, which seemed to make her think she had given me information I had not had up to that point or something. I did point out to her that she WAS correct, however, humans consume hydrogen on a daily basis, either in the air, our food, or in the 2 parts to that 1 part of oxygen that makes up that thing we call water. So it was my guess that she made and possible sold paraffin candles and felt the need to defend them. (??)

If you like the AMBIENCE of candle light, there are electric tea lights and those that can also be set into a pillar type “shell” and will release scent.

My father unfortunately is in advanced stages of COPD, from smoking, so when he quit smoking his lungs improved quite a bit. They began to repair themselves somewhat. Since his lungs are ALWAYS being checked by a doctor, and my step mother uses my melts ALL THE TIME and his lungs are not affected by the use of them, even in the bedroom where he spends many hours a day, I’d say that they are pretty safe. At least for HIM. They don’t make him cough or make it more difficult to breathe even though I am constantly having to give them to her because she uses so many, lol. They have not injured his lungs any further, AT ALL. So maybe it is just HIM, but I’d venture a guess that using melts is pretty safe. And with so many people that have fireplaces, pets, drive a car, whatever, burning a candle for a couple hours a day, or using scented wax melts doesn’t seem to be as scary as they are made out to be. I don’t actually MAKE wicked candles so I’m not just defending something I make and sell, I just have done some homework on the subject myself and at the end of the day, it seems to be pretty harmless.

If you enjoy real candles, with scent, I suggest you buy nothing but soy, (or beeswax, but it can be more expensive) and whether you use essential oils (which really are kind of a waste in a candle because they DO put off great scent, but not for long, so they need to be mixed with an artificial fragrance to give them “staying power” so you can enjoy them longer), because really if the artificial scent is your problem, you need to remember that just about everything we use on a daily basis contains it whether it is our body wash, shampoo, cleaners, laundry detergent, lotions, and the list goes on and on and on. It’s hard to escape. If you simply want scent, like me, warm some soy wax melts in a warmer designed for that purpose, only melt them for a couple hours at a time (or you will become used to the scent and think it is gone and throw them away WAY before you need to, so do it intermittently) and really it is no different than sleeping on your bed sheets after you have run them through the wash if you use a detergent or fabric softener in your laundry.

And my apologies for writing an article in the comments, while commenting on your article. I just found this conversation interesting and thought I’d throw my hat in the ring with the things I have learned not just before I started making and selling melts, but things I have learned since. including my father’s experience with them, even having advance stage COPD.

Thank you for the article and conversation!