Are you candles safe or toxic?

Candle Lovers - warning. There's a chance the candles you're burning are creating some toxins in your home, espeically in cooler weather when the home isn't well ventilated. Are your candles safe or toxic. What ingredients can cause your candles to release toxins in to the air? We will discuss the following options in this article.

• The wax used
• The fragrance used
• The wick

1. Paraffin Wax - WORST OPTION
2. Soy Wax
3. Palm Oil Wax
4. Beeswax - SAFEST OPTION

PARAFFIN WAX is a toxic petrochemical by-product that arrives at the factory with warnings for workers to wear goggles, a mask and gloves. Once they work their magic by dying it, adding artificial fragrance, you burn them in your home and release these toxins in to the air you breathe. It doesn't matter if it's food grade paraffin wax or the cheapest & nastiest tealight candles on the market, the end result is the same. A large number of the scented candles on the market in major stores are made from paraffin wax, especially discount and clearance stores.

SOY AND PALM WAX aren't wax naturally. They're oils. We start with whatever pesticides were sprayed on the crops when they were grown and then add some chemical bleach and then they're hydrogenated with nickel to turn them in to a wax. Each year, billions of tonnes of environmentally destructive dioxins are produced making these candles that most people think are the safe & natural alternative to petrochemical paraffin wax. You'll find Soy Candles being sold by people at markets. Don't be fooled, while they're a little better than paraffin candles, you still have a fair way to go in the health & eco areas to find a truly safe alternative. Crops for Soy & Palm are primarily grown in third world countries where billions of hectares of virgin rainforest have been cleared to make room for these plantations.

BEESWAX CANDLES are the ONLY safe & natural alternative. 100% Beeswax candles (and do check you're not buying something that's just been 'green washed' with 5% beeswax) are carbon neutral, non-toxic and are a natural air ioniser, helping to remove toxins, dust, bad aromas, viruses, germs, mould & mildew from the air.

Beeswax has a higher melting point than the other waxes, which means the candles burn longer, and in a draft free environment, smokeless AND drip free. They'll burn up to 10x longer than so called 'cheaper' alternatives.

Bees pollinate our forests and up to a third of the food we eat. For each kilo of beeswax, a female worker bee will eat 10kg of honey, fly 530,000km and visit 70 million flower blossoms. No wonder they're called 'worker' bees!

Health & safety information and images courtesy of Queen B Australia.