to make our home candle free over air quality concerns

[toriuk]

Dp loves candles, but I've always thought they are not good with all that black smoke. We have cut down a lot, but aibu to just get rid of them all?

I hear that beeswax candles are safe, but a pack of 6 tea lights costs 5, so no way can we afford that.

i prefer scented reed diffusers now. partly for this reason. with scented candles, half the time, the smell of soot was as strong as the scent.

Back in the days of the 70s tea lights were called nightlights as you would have a special holder that would go in your child's bedroom and burn as they went to sleep.

I had thing like this. Mum would put a candle in it every night. It's a wonder I'm not dead.

Humans -so ungrateful!

We get electric light, so we buy candles.

We develop efficient medicines, so we fart about in Holland & Barrett buying untested 'supplements'.

Pfffft.

car why?

I've read some batty threads in my time. This is RIGHT up there with the battiest.

I grew up with a night light candle by my bed every night.

lots of you are sounding like the old my granddad smoked 50 a day and lived until 100.

if we can increase the indoor air quality a bit then we owe it to our children.

Some balance is called for. Burning several candles daily is probably not a good idea. Occassional use will do no harm.

But there is a great deal of proof that cigarettes will kill you. Can you link to the proof about candles please as I've not heard of this before.

proof:

'Candle burning occurred in half of the homes where, on average, it was responsible for almost 60% of the integrated exposure [to ultrafine particles].'

in this study here:
pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es402429h

I heard one of the researchers being interviewed on the radio and he said that he'd stopped burning candles at home after doing the research.

nepis.epa.gov/Adobe/PDF/P1009BZL.pdf

Knock yourself out - it's not the most entertaining way to spend an evening. Result is no known health risks. Some increased exposure to certain chemicals with certain types of candle.

Won't anyone think of the children?!!?

I never say this, but in this instance, you must have something better to worry about? I mean, scraping the bottom of the perfect parent barrel here, aren't we?

mynameisred, that is not "proof".

I believe the children are our future
Take your candles and throw them all away
Look at all the toxins that they have insiiiiiiiideeeeeeee.

The link from mynameisred won't let me down load it as I'm not a member, but seems to say candles = bad.
The link from atticusclaw seems to say candles = fine.

So now what do I believe?

The link I posted was from the US Environmental Protection Agency. No known health risks even where 30 candles are burned for 4 hours in a 50m3 room.

Some increased exposure to certain chemicals with certain types of candle but the tests weren't designed to measure this and it's a different issue. In particular lead wicks in some candles from China can be a problem.

Don't ask me how I know this stuff, lawyers get to be mini experts on all sorts of things.

We have candles and night lights lit every night. Lovely. If you want fab scented candles try Isle of Skye candles. Long burn time and smell divine.

I love candles but I never light them. If I buy the decent (expensive!) ones then I smell them whenever I walk into a room, they are lovely.

What about those fake battery powered candles instead? There's a pub near me that uses them in their beer garden and imo they give the same atmosphere/ambience

I can't see the point of filling the air I breathe with candle smoke, burning oils or artificial airwick smells! In particular a 'scent of the great outdoors'. Open a fecking window!