Whenever we go gift-shopping or when we light a candle at home, many of us don’t think about the contents of our favourite brands of candles and how they could be harming ourselves and others. If you do a little research into some of the bigger household names of candle companies, you’ll find that many of them are made out of paraffin wax.
Paraffin wax is a white or colourless substance that is created using crude oil (otherwise known as fossil fuels). Needless to say that lighting a paraffin wax candle isn’t the same as standing in the middle of a petrol station and inhaling it’s fumes; but a quote from an NHS article titled: “Candles, romance and… cancer?” (NHS, 2009) gives an insight on how using paraffin wax is an unrecognised source of indoor pollution:
“An occasional paraffin candle and its emissions will not likely affect you, but lighting many paraffin candles every day for years or lighting them frequently in an un-ventilated bathroom around a tub, for example, may cause problems”.
Scaring you is the last thing that we want to do and there is no link between using paraffin candles and cancer risk, but in terms of your own health and the environment, using soy-based candles are an improvement we would recommend to everyone. The process of creating soy wax candles from the creation of the wax down to us pouring them in our kitchen produces less carbon emissions; less ocean pollution and of course, no fossil fuels (excepting the tractors and vehicles that harvest the soybeans and bring the wax to us. We’d prefer everything to be electric!)
If you’d prefer to purchase candles that are kinder to the planet and are made by hand instead of mass-produced then our shop is the perfect choice for you.
The Positives of Using Natural Candles (And Why Some Big Brands Can Be Harmful)