I must confess, I used to be the girl who had every Yankee Candle in her home – at least one in every room. I was especially drawn to the food smelling candles. I loved Bath and Body Works wallflowers and had those in every room in my house too. Car air fresheners were a must and leaving the house without my perfume on was just something I wouldn’t do.
I never realized that all those things I was putting in my house and on and in my body were actually causing it harm. I mean really, it’s just a smell, right? Wrong.
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I was dead wrong. The toxins I allowed to permeate and pollute the air in my home and car are nauseating to think about now that my knowledge has changed and I am privy to what exactly was (and still is) in those products.
Education Is Power
I would love to share this knowledge with you so you can make an educated choice. I would also encourage you not to just take my word for it but do your own research as well. Environmental Working Group is a great place to start to learn all about ingredients in products. Safe Cosmetics is also a great resource! Also, emailing the companies directly for ingredient lists can be extremely helpful.
A word of caution – if a company will not share ingredients with you that is a HUGE red flag. If a company is not willing to be completely transparent, then they have something to hide. I do not ever patronize companies that aren’t transparent. Mine and my family’s health is at stake. I did email Scentsy on November 27, 2016, for an ingredients list for their products, since they are not listed on their website anywhere, and have had no response. (update 4/2018, I have still not had a response to my email.) (update 5/9/2023 – Scentsy FINALLY does list the ingredients in SOME, not all of their products on their website. However, it further confirms that these products are never something I would allow in my home. They are a chemical toxin soup to be avoided.)
Before I talk about fragrance, I want to talk about wax and wicks in candles because they can also have contaminants in them that permeate the air in your home and get into your brain and lungs.
What is Wax Really?
Most candle wax is petroleum-based (paraffin is a petroleum by-product.) There is no such thing as “high-quality” paraffin. This wax is sourced from the refining of crude oil into gasoline. The petroleum sludge that is then left over is then bleached and deodorized to be used as wax for candles and such. In the refining of this petroleum, the process gives off the same soot as a diesel engine does.
This harmful kind of wax, when burned, releases:
- Acetaldehyde (the same toxin Candida Yeast releases when dying off, carcinogenic, skin rashes, burns) (1)
- Formaldehyde (increased risk for allergies and asthma, increased risk of nasal squamous cell carcinomas when inhaled) (2)
- Toluene (a solvent that attacks the Central Nervous System, acute toxicity when inhaled, and reproductive and organ toxicity) (3)
- Benzene (produced from Toluene and causes fatigue, sleepiness, headaches, and nausea and attention disorders, can cause bone marrow not to produce enough red blood cells and damages the immune system) (4)
- Acrolein (a pesticide and herbicide that can change genetic structures and cause a decreased breathing rate) (5) (6)
These are all massively dangerous toxins that should not be a part of a healthy life. When these are polluting our indoor air they are extremely hazardous to our health. Even the EPA says that if multiple candles are burned in a home the pollution exceeds the safe minimum for indoor air. Plus, most people who use candles, wax melts or fragrance-based products, use them daily which raises the risk of adverse health effects exponentially.
Don’t be fooled when a company uses soy wax either! Almost 100% of soy is genetically modified and heavily sprayed with chemicals as well as processed with hexane that will all transfer to wax. Additionally, soy candles almost always contain a mixture of wax, including paraffin, which, as I said above is highly toxic.
Unprocessed beeswax and coconut wax are the only non-toxic options for candles or melts.
Can a Wick Really Be Harmful?
Most candle wicks have a lead wire core. When that wick is burned lead is released into the air for us to breathe into our lungs, get on our skin and get in our eyes.
According to the EPA’s research, “Candles with lead wicks have the potential to generate indoor airborne lead concentrations of health concern. It is also possible for consumers to unknowingly purchase candles containing lead wick cores and repeatedly expose themselves to harmful amounts of lead through regular candle-burning.”
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Low-level lead exposure, which this would be, can lead to:
- neurobehavioral changes
- hypertension
- kidney disease
- increased depression
- phobic anxiety symptoms
- mood and personality changes
- irritability
- aggressiveness
- changes in sleep patterns
- hyperactivity
- learning difficulties
- difficulty concentrating
- memory loss, & lethargy
Untreated wood wicks are the best choice for the type of wick in your candles.
Is Burning That Candle Really Worth It?
There are 3,100+ registered chemicals that are choices to be used in formulating a fragrance. Did you read that? 3,100 chemicals!
When you see the word fragrance on a label for detergent, soap, perfume, candles, air fresheners, dryer sheets or any product it can often be a combination of 100+ of those chemicals in it and only about 8 have been tested for human safety.
Fragrance is known as a “cluster ingredient” which means that one-word name can contain hundreds of chemical components.
You saw just a sampling of dangerous health effects of just five of these chemicals above. All of the 3,100 chemicals are ultra-toxic to the human body. Lots of them are known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors (thyroid or hormone issues anyone?), reproductive toxicants, and toxic disinfectants. They have been linked to cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders, neurological disorders as well as allergies and eczema. Fragrance is in the top 5 allergens when it comes to ingredients.
According to Therese Kerr fragrance has caused semen quality to drop 40%, genital malformations in babies, 400% increase in miscarriage, PCOS, thyroid problems, infertility, endometriosis, ovarian cancer, early puberty and early menopause.
Of course, fragrance isn’t the sole contributor to all cases as there are many other known causes but fragrance is a big part of the root cause of these problems. Therese also says that fragrance can mimic hormones (estrogens) and cause our natural, God-given hormones to short-circuit. Our bodies store toxins in our fat.
Fragrance is a toxin and is stored in our fat. Our brain is at least 60% fat. It makes perfect sense why using fragrance throughout our days can cause neurological and CNS disorders. Fragrance is always absorbed into our bodies at a 100% rate.
Under the FAQ’s on Scentsy’s website (update 4/2018 – they have since changed the PDF at this link and it no longer says the following which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still not true) …it says “… enhance your home with more than 80 fragrances.”
They also say they use both synthetic and naturally derived fragrances. Naturally derived fragrances are things like beaver anal glands for an orange scent. I really want that floating in my air and lungs!
Synthetic, manmade esters, ketones, lactones, terpenes, benzines, amines, and aldehydes can be detrimental to long-term health. Fragrance has all of these constituents in it.
Scentsy Bars
In researching Scentsy’s bar wax, their website says “Scentsy bar wax fragrance contains extremely low levels of non-harmful diethyl phthalate (DEP)…”
Even at very low levels, DEP is a known danger to human development and reproduction, can cause allergies, and immunotoxicity and is a known endocrine disruptor. This toxin DEP is rated number 3 out of 10 on EWG’s website. It is on the lower end of the scale but in our home, we don’t allow anything above a two rating. The more toxins you get out of your home and car the better your health can be. For excellent health, it’s important to reduce your toxic load.
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How about Benzyl Benzoate, one ingredient in the LONG list of ingredients in the Scentsy Amazon Rain Wax Bar? It causes skin irritation, estrogenic responses in human cell breast cancer lines, respiratory difficulty and more. (7)
Here’s another one – BHT (Butylated hydroxytoluene) – in the same Amazon Rain Wax bar linked to a negatively affected growth rate and liver damage. (8)
So those little wax melts you have melting in every room of your home, you might want to think about getting rid of them.
From someone who knows personally…
You don’t want allergies, thyroid problems, or reproductive problems from excess toxins floating around your home. I have had all of the above symptoms and more and it can be miserable.
Scentsy Room Sprays
Scentsy has a product called Room Sprays that comes in a variety of scents. This is what Scentsy FAQs have to say about their room sprays:
“Spray your Room Spray into the center of a well-ventilated room. Make sure you’re familiar with the consumer warning label on the back of the bottle.”
There is a warning label on those sprays of course not pictured on the website! You have to buy the bottle to see what it says. Grrr…. With some research (because I refuse to buy it) this is what the label says:
EYE IRRITANT – avoid contact with eyes. If eye contact occurs, rinse with water. If irritation persists, contact a physician. Contains fragrance oils that may cause damage. Do not spray on or permit contact with fabrics, or painted or finished surfaces. Do not spray in automobiles or in confined areas.
Friends, do we really think this is freshening our air? Why spray an “air freshener” in your room with a warning label that says to only spray it in a well-ventilated area? These DO NOT freshen air. Instead, they pollute it to dangerously toxic levels.
It’s not just Scentsy that has a fragrance and toxin problem. Many products have fragrances in them. Wallflowers, Glade Plug-Ins, detergents, most candles unless they’re organic, shampoos, deodorants, lotions, conditioners, cosmetics, perfumes and lots more.
Remember the word fragrance is a cluster ingredient and can mean any of upwards of 3,100 synthetic chemicals are included in that one name.
Here are the steps to take to make your home healthy and toxin-free:
- Educate yourself about which ingredients are harmful. Start by by learning about toxic cleaning ingredients (many of which are found in candles and other toiletries and home goods)
- Become a label reader
- Avoid products with ingredients you cannot pronounce.
- Be aware of what you’re using and if you are making a deposit into your health bank account or a withdrawal
- Vote with your dollars
- Use truly non-toxic candles with safe wax and wicks and/or diffuse grade 1 essential oils in your home.
My family and I immediately know when we walk into a home that has synthetic air fresheners because we all start having symptoms of runny noses, headaches, restlessness, irritability, sneezing and more. The less fragrance and toxins you use in your home, the more evident it will be to you when you enter the home of someone who does. Even better is that you can pass on this information and help them become aware too because chances are, they have no idea how the chemicals that are made to smell so good are actually affecting their health.
Now that you know what fragrance is, where it can be found, why it’s harmful and what products are laden with fragrance, AND safe, non-toxic alternatives, are you going to make a point to eliminate toxins from the products you purchase and use?
Source: https://t-tees.com
Category: WHY
