help me remember this ear candle!

[Icanseewhyichangednyusername]

I had sudden memory of being a small child with raging ear infection (early 80's..... I couldn't have been much older than 4 or 5) and as well as the banana flavoured medicine, calpol, hot water bottle and blankie, I recall my parents lighting a kind of candle (one of those prices tea light types) it may have been in an oil burner thinking about it, but i dont remember it smelling.

Anybody else know what I'm talking about??!! Nobody in my family remembers and google just brings up ear candles

Was it a Wrights Vapouriser? Tea light heating a weird block that had Friar’s Balsam dripped into it. Very comforting when you were poorly as a child (not that you’d pop one in your kid’s rooms now lol)!

Wrights vaporiser?

you two are so clever thank you! I dont recognise those brands but it must be something of that ilk......
x

Nah, I’m just old @Icanseewhyichangednyusername lol

I’m not surprised they’ve gone extinct; beyond the obvious fire risk, Wright’s vaporiser fluid contained coal tar (their coal tar soap is still produced with that same smell of our youth but without the nasties), the compounds within being a type 1 carcinogen. The same group as asbestos & radium.

What with everyone in the 70s puffing on fags, coal tar in kids rooms, leaded petrol fumes & coal fires I’m surprised we’re still about.

But the smell! My parents were crap with being physically comforting so the glow of the vaporiser was like a smelly, warm hug. My daughter’s Icthopaste bandages have the same kind of odour - and it’s lovely.

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy thats lovely you have positive associations with it..Thats crap about your parents lack of tactile affection though.

but yikes about coal tar. i dont remember smelling it (maybe i had a blocked nose)..... I'm tempted to buy the coal tar soap to see if it spurs any recognition!

I think I only remember the smell as Mum popped it on for everything - cold, pneumonia, flu, earache - so sometimes I didn’t have a blocked nose! I think it also produced steam from the block? I do vaguely remember it being sat in a saucer full of water ‘in case of fire’!

I have made sure I have smothered my children in hugs & love you’s, even as adults & being separated from my son by lockdown & distance, the thing I miss most is his smell.

I probably drive my kids dotty with it!

It was probably a Hopi ear candle.

@user1471479662 nope not an ear candle!

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy

I think I only remember the smell as Mum popped it on for everything - cold, pneumonia, flu, earache - so sometimes I didn’t have a blocked nose! I think it also produced steam from the block? I do vaguely remember it being sat in a saucer full of water ‘in case of fire’!

I have made sure I have smothered my children in hugs & love you’s, even as adults & being separated from my son by lockdown & distance, the thing I miss most is his smell.

I probably drive my kids dotty with it!

That’s so lovely, what a gift to your children to have broken the cycle of repressed expressions of love and care.

Ps the “steam” sounds familiar...... I had a visceral reaction when I read that part in your message