• Baking Candles are made of beeswax and natural ingredients – no paraffin!  Unlike paraffin candles – which pollute your home – beeswax actually cleans your indoor air of dust, pollen, pollutants and even germs.

• Baking Candles have no wick, no open flame and can safely be left warming in your oven for up to eight hours.

• Baking Candles contain no artificial scents – they are made with REAL ingredients like organic apple, organic pumpkin, organic cocoa and cocoa butter and organic spices.

• Baking Candles are reusable (up to 50 hours) and the aroma actually improves every time you bake them!

• Baking Candles are an incredible bargain!  At $25 each they cost only about 50 cents per hour of use.

For me, working with beeswax is like working with a good bread dough — you can FEEL the life inside it.

But there are others, more scientific reasons to love beeswax and I’ve put together a few of the articles about it and some links to some others.  Here’s one article by an M.D. that is especially good!

Beat nagging allergies and sinus problems–just by minding your own beeswax

By Jonathan V. Wright, M.D.
(Reprinted From “Nutrition and Healing”)

It’s not everyday you see nuns in full religious garb anymore, so when two walked into the Tahoma Clinic recently, they attracted a bit of attention from both the staff and patients. But that wasn’t what I remember most about their visit. Before they left the Clinic that day, the nuns taught me an approach to respiratory health I’d never even heard of before.

Like many monastic orders, these nuns support themselves and their convent by making and selling products. Their specialty is 100 percent beeswax candles, which, Mother Thecla told me, actually clean the air, helping to reduce the pollutant and allergen load.

Technology actually made candles worse for your health

She went on to explain that hundreds of years ago, most candles were made of beeswax. But over the centuries, beeswax candles were gradually replaced by tallow (animal fat) candles, and then in the last century by paraffin candles, which are probably the kind you have in your home right now. It sounds innocent enough, but paraffin is made from the sludge at the bottom of barrels of crude oil, which is then treated and bleached with benzene and other chemical solvents to “clean it up” for use in candles. Paraffin candles put out soot and smoke when you burn them (I thought all candles did that) along with toxins and carcinogens. Since burning petrochemical paraffin smells bad, synthetic fragrance oils are added, many of which are irritating and even toxic themselves when they’re burned. Breathing what paraffin candles give off has been compared to breathing diesel fumes.

And, to make matters worse, the soot, smoke, and chemical residue from “regular” candles can stick to walls, ceilings, and ventilation ducts and gets re-circulated whenever the heating/cooling system is in action, exposing you to these pollutants even when the paraffin candles aren’t burning.

Allergy, sinus, and asthma relief just from lighting a candle

But beeswax candles don’t cause any of those problems. In fact, Mother Thecla told me people with allergies, sinus problems, and asthma have reported significant improvement in their symptoms, breathing better and sleeping better after burning the 100 percent beeswax candles in their bedrooms for three to four hours before bedtime. One person who burned a beeswax candle all day when she was home reported that her asthma gradually went away completely.

After the nuns left, I did a bit of my own research to see if I could turn up any scientific evidence on bees-wax’s effects. Although scientists still don’t know all the intricacies of the complex molecules in beeswax, there’s at least a partial explanation for the healthful action of burning beeswax candles. According to entomologist Bill Reno, burning beeswax produces negative ions.1 Negative ions are nature’s air purifiers, cleaning the air of dust, mold, bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants.

Make sure you’re getting the real deal

Here’s the catch: to get any of these benefits, the candle has to be 100 percent beeswax. And, unfortunately, a candle only needs to contain 51 percent beeswax to be labeled as a beeswax candle. The rest can be paraffin (or anything else burnable), so it may not be as easy as picking one up the next time you’re at the mall.

One way to find out is to ask the store clerk to light the candle: 100 percent beeswax candles have a uniquely fresh smell–which is distinctly different from paraffin. (The nuns even showed us the difference, so I can vouch for the fact that it’s a noticeable one.)

If you can’t find 100 percent beeswax candles near you, the nuns have made theirs available through the Tahoma Clinic Dispensary, with which I’m of course affiliated.

Beeswax candles can be on the expensive side–at least in comparison to “regular” paraffin candles. But beeswax actually burns slower, so you’ll get more for your money than if you opted for the cheaper versions. Plus, the potential for better respiratory health is well worth the few extra cents.

There’s not much hard evidence on beeswax’s health benefits, but if it’s possible that something as simple as burning a candle might be able to help your respiratory problems, it’s at least worth a try.

If you’ve used beeswax candles, please take a minute to share your experience on the Nutrition & Healing website Forum. (Go to www.wrightnewsletter.com and look for the tab labeled ‘Forum’ at the top of the web page. Click on it, then on the ‘New Thread’ button that will appear to the right of the page.)

JVW

Citations available upon request and on the Nutrition & Healing website: www.wrightnewsletter.com

Excperted From Metroactive.Com — an internet newsletter — November 2003

“But the good news is that candles made from natural wax sources–beeswax, soya, bayberry, and palm–are benign and burn clean. Beeswax, derived from flowers and bees, is nontoxic, naturally aromatic, and when burned emits beneficial negative ions that actually help purify the air. But beeswax supplies are limited, making it expensive.”

Excerpted from http://www.beelitecandles.com/BenBeeswax.htm

“Pure Beeswax is one of nature’s most perfect products. Prized since ancient times, fragrant beeswax candles burn longer and cleaner than ordinary wax candles. In fact, pure beeswax has the highest melting point of any known wax. Its slow, smokeless flame gives off more light and heat than other waxes and are virtually dripless if kept away from drafts and fans.

I make each candle myself here at the Glory Bee facility in Kern County, California.  I work in a wonderful outdoor kitchen that is only about 50 feet from the huge beekeeping warehouse — a good thing when it comes to easily picking up the big chunks of sweet-smelling beeswax, a not-so-good thing when it comes to the bees smelling me melting their wax and deciding to come try to take it back! :) 

But I’m getting used to the loud buzzing and am having a wonderful time with this.  I’ve been a professional dessert chef and created cheesecakes anhd chocolate cakes for restaurants.  I always made each dessert as if I was making it for my own family to eat and I am bringing the same approach to Baking Candles. — except I’m making them as if they’re for my family to smell!

Last night I was making Apple Pie Candles., and it occured to me that some golden raisens would smell great along with the apples and cinammon sticks and other spices…..so I started adding them.  The night before that — I got the idea for adding a little candied lemon peel to the Apple Pie Candle….and a smidge of cinnamon to the Choclate…and just a little pure maple syrip in the Pumpkin.  My friends and family have always teased me about not being able to make the same thing twice  — I will always show up at holidays with these incredible desserts and they say “Enjoy it while you can — you’ll never see it again!”  So when it comes to creating Baking Candles, every night is different and every candle is different — the only promise that I can make is that each one will smell wonderful.

In fact — after I stir all these wonderful ingedients together with the fragrant, golden beeswax, it smells so good I have more than once almost tasted it!  But the real “secret ingredients” aren’t the maple syrup or candied lemon peel.  I think what makes these candles so special is that they are each made with love and joy and with the intention of being good for those who buy them.  Scientifically, the beeswax will clean your indoor air and calm you with its scent.  Emotionally? Well, the smell of pie takes us to happy places in our hearts!  Quantum physics would tell us that on a sub-atomic level everything (including us!) is just energy and information.  We hope that in offering these Baking Candles we can send some joyous energy from our “house” to yours!

Post a comment and let me know what YOU think!

http://sexuality.about.com/od/sexualscience/a/sex_thanksgivin.htm