Quick takeaways

• ✓ Cheap candles may include paraffin wax, artificial fragrance, dyes, preservatives, and stearic acid.
• ✓ Burning these can release airborne chemicals that some people find irritating or prefer to avoid.
• ✓ Choosing cleaner alternatives (e.g., coconut oil + essential oils) avoids many of those additives.

One of the best things you can do for your home and your health is to get educated on the types of ingredients you are introducing into your space. While many cheap candles that you find at the grocery store might look pretty and smell nice, they often contain a plethora of ingredients that can harm your health.

From breathing problems to skin irritation and even disruption of your hormonal systems (yikes), these everyday toxins are commonplace in many cheap candle brands. Thankfully, you don’t have to say goodbye to beautiful scents forever.

There are responsible and ethical brands out there leading the charge for better ingredients in your candles. We’ve found a way to formulate candles that look good, smell incredible, and don’t contain common toxins that can wreak havoc with your health.

Why avoid toxins in candles?

Any time you burn a candle in your home, you are releasing particles into the air. These particles will often smell nice, which is how you can scent your home with beautiful fragrances. But there may be a darker side to your candle habit that isn’t always obvious.

It’s often cheaper and easier to make candles from ingredients that aren’t that great for your health. This will include ingredients like artificial fragrance, cheap petrochemical wax, dyes to make them look pretty on the shelf, and preservatives to help them last longer.

When these ingredients are burned, they can release chemicals into the air that you will breathe in and will also settle on your skin. These can cause irritation of the airways for those with certain sensitivities. They can also disrupt the endocrine system by mimicking hormones that occur naturally within the body.

For this reason, we recommend avoiding the following 5 common toxins found in candles.

Paraffin wax

Paraffin wax is cheap and readily available. It is a by-product of the oil refinement sector, making it a petrochemical ingredient. This wax is often chosen because it burns without its own scent, but this doesn’t mean that it is pure and innocent.

Paraffin wax can release an excess of compounds known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. They can also release particulate matter and phthalates. These can cause headaches, breathing problems and other health issues, particularly for very sensitive people such as those with asthma or sensitive skin.

While some might claim that paraffin wax is perfectly safe, there are cleaner options available. We use coconut oil because it is clean burning, ethical and sustainable. It also smells divine, which provides a wonderful base for the candle scent.

Artificial fragrance

Companies are allowed to hide the actual ingredients in their candles when they use artificial fragrance because this counts as a trade secret. This means that companies using artificial fragrance can avoid stating what is actually in their candles.

We don’t love this approach, since it could mean any number of chemicals are going into the mix. Many synthetic fragrances contain something known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, or EDCs.

EDCs are capable of interfering with your hormonal balance by mimicking the natural hormones that occur in the body – scary stuff!

To avoid any such interaction, we opt for all natural fragrance by using essential oils. Essential oils can provide benefits beyond beautiful fragrance, allowing you to create scent moods based on the principles of aromatherapy.

Dyes and colourants

Dyes and colours have no place in a candle, other than to catch your eye on the shop shelf. Brightly coloured candles can make the whole thing more tempting.

A bright orange hue for a pumpkin spice candle in Fall, or a bright red colour for a cranberry candle in winter. These colours help to double down on the sensory experience and make them irresistible.

But once you get the candle home, the colour and dyes used do nothing more than to release chemicals into the air when you burn them. Dyes are nearly always synthetic, which means they’ll contribute to indoor air pollution.

You could be filling the air with VOCs and EDCs, all for a candle that matches your interior decor.

Preservatives

Preservatives are added to many cheaper candle brands to help the wax to last even longer. This means that the candles can sit in a warehouse, in a store room, or on the shop shelf for even longer.

The only benefit of preservatives in a candle is to boost profits for the seller, as it means they’re less likely to have to send the candle to the bargain bin. Since candles are meant to be enjoyed, there are no benefits to the consumer – unless you love to keep candles for a long time without using them.

We don’t add any preservatives to our candles. Instead, we create small batches according to demand, so we don’t need to keep warehouses stocked for months or even years.

Stearic acid

This ingredient may be added to candles to help enhance the structure of the candle and improve the burn time. It’s been used since the Middle Ages in candle making, but longevity doesn’t always mean it’s logical to continue using it.

The main issue with this ingredient is the source. It’s a saturated fatty acid commonly extracted from animal fat. So, if you’re looking for a vegan-friendly formulation, this is a hidden ingredient that you’ll want to avoid.

It can also be found in palm oil, but this is another dubious source that should be avoided. Palm oil production is linked to deforestation and destruction of habitat for some of the world’s most beautiful creatures, including orangutans. It’s a personal preference, but we’d rather avoid this.

Final thoughts

Something as simple as shopping for a candle can be fraught with hidden dangers. To protect your health, it’s always best to choose natural, vegan and ethical candles to ensure no portion of the composition is problematic. We can help you to find the ideal scent for your home, without the risk of introducing common toxins that could cause harm to inhabitants. Start your search for your dream scent with our scent quiz.

At a glance: Paraffin vs Coconut Wax

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