We all know what we mean by cheap candles. You find them in the dollar store or a hardware store and they are usually the ones that people grab quickly for a power outage. They are typically brilliant white paraffin. They most often are made in China and if you have had them around for a while I suggest you rub the wicks on a sheet of white paper. If the unburned wick makes the paper grey or black throw it away. Chances are good there is metal in the wick.
The only redeeming quality of these candles is they are cheap. But when does cheap cost us too much? How much do you value air quality? How much do you value the health and wellbeing of your family?
Consider this chemical soup of ingredients often found in paraffin:
- Acrolein
- Benzene
- Ethanol
- Formaldehyde
- dibutyl phthalate
- diethyl phthalate
- toluene
- styrene
- ethyl benzene
- naphthalene
- benzaldehyde
- didecyl phthalate
- acetone
There is a very ugly side to paraffin. Some of the above toxins are also found in cigarettes, specifically acetone, benezene, formaldehyde and toluene. I don’t want the chemicals in cigarettes released in my house and I have not allowed smoking cigarettes in my house for years. So why would I burn a paraffin candle? Too often we let price dictate our choices. But is the potential risk to our health and that of our family worth it? Maybe cheap paraffin is actually costing us too much!
An alternative to paraffin is 100% pure natural beeswax. Find out more about the benefits of beeswax.
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