Why I Don't Burn Candles

Like many people, I used to enjoy burning candles in various rooms of my house. I love the special type of ambience they can provide. I also loved being able to use them to introduce special scents, such as fresh pumpkin pie!

Because I value my health, I've never allowed cigarette smoking in my house. For a long time it never occurred to me to look at candles in the same light.

First came the ionizers

Buying ionic air cleaners for the house was the beginning of my candle education. I bought the ionizers because, as I've said, I value my health. I thought they might be a good way to cut down on dust and other small particles we breathe every day. I loved the idea of breathing cleaner air.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well they collected dust and eliminated odors, especially from cooking and painting.

I cleaned the collector grids weekly and became familiar with what they normally take out of the air in my home.

Then came the candle experiment

One day I burned a candle. No big deal. Until I pulled the collector grids out of my ionizers to clean them. They were covered with a thick, black, slightly sticky coating. What on earth?

I couldn't figure out where it came from, but I cleaned the grids and reinstalled them. I noticed it was much harder to clean the black residue off the grids than it was to wipe off the usual dust and pet hair. Still, I didn't think much about it until the next time I burned a candle.

Same black gunk on the grids. This time it clicked for me that the appearance of black stuff coincided with burning a candle. Several more tests revealed a consistent appearance of black glop on the grids every time I burned a candle.

What am I breathing?

I was horrified to think I was deliberately putting soot into the air. After all my efforts to have a healthy home!

I jumped onto the internet to find out more about the health hazards of burning candles. I learned a lot of new and scary things. Not only do candles give off soot in the form of partially burned carbon, some candles give off even worse stuff.

For instance, if your candle has a metal core inside its wick, you're probably putting lead soot into your air, with severe health risks.

Paraffin wax candles can potentially put various kinds of cancer-causing toxins into the air.

There's an endless variety of candles out there, including those with scents added. Candle makers don't have to disclose all the ingredients they use, so you can't always know what you're exposing yourself to.

And it's not just candles. Burning wood (or other things) in your fireplace, incense, potpurri, and oil lamps all contribute to indoor pollution that you end up inhaling into your lungs.

Time for alternatives

It was easy to decide never again to burn candles or have a fire in the fireplace, but I did miss them. I was delighted to find alternatives that give me back some of what I gave up.

My favorite is battery-operated candles. Sound stupid, I know, but it turns out they're wonderful. You don't get the scent (or the soot), but modern technology has done a fabulous job of giving you the visual effect. The candles are amazingly realistic looking. And they reproduce the lovely flickering light perfectly.

They come in lots of types, from pillar candles to votives and tea lights. I haven't found a replacement for the floating candles that I particularly liked to use in a bowl of water as a centerpiece for the dinner table. But I've found every other kind I've wanted.

They're not just beautiful

Besides being beautiful, they make me breathe a little easier in a second significant way. I no longer have to worry about setting a fire accidentally.

As for missing the scent, I get that now by using a few drops of scented oil in a diffuser.

If only all of life's problems were so easy to solve.