LIVE SMART...BUY RESPONSIBLY

At Pure Light, we are  passionate about our health and the health of this planet that we all live upon. We feel that it is our responsibility to educate ourselves and contribute to the future health of this planet, so that our children will have a beautiful place to run and play, with clean air to breathe inside and out. Please realize that each of our small day to day decisions can make a big difference. Please join us in our endeavor to live a greener life. Educate yourselves and your loved ones, and live and buy responsibly!

BECOME AN EDUCATED BUYER:  It is important while shopping for natural candles to recognize some of the key words that will help you understand what you may actually be buying.

• FOOD GRADE WAX:  Paraffin wax, a waste product from the petroleum industry.
• NATURAL WAX BLEND:  Petroleum based paraffin wax, blended with a  small amount of a natural based wax.
  
• MADE WITH ESSENTIAL OILS:  A small amount of essential oil blended with  the majority of the scent coming from a petrochemical based synthetic fragrance.

COMMON CANDLE INGREDIENTS:

• Paraffin wax.  A waste product from the petroleum industry.  Known to Emit 11 known toxins while burning, including toluene, benzene, and formaldehyde, which are known carcinogens.
• Synthetic fragrances.  Chemicals primarily derived from petroleum, including phlatates, benzene derivatives, aldehydes and many other known toxins and synthesizers.  (There are at least 4000 different chemicals used by the fragrance industry today, many of which have never been tested for safety.)  Synthetic fragrances can emit volatile organic compounds (vocs) into the air which have been known to produce a myraid of allergic reactions including; eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, rash, damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system, as well as cancer and birth defects.
• Chemical dyes.  Derived from different sources including coal tar.
• Metal wicks.  Lead or other metal cores.  Emit potentially dangerous levels of lead into the air.  Lead poisoning affects many organ systems and biochemical processes, including the central nervous system and cardiovascular system.
• Stearic acid was once the only additive available for paraffin candles and is derived from either animal fat or palm oil. It is now often replaced with Vybar, a polymer which raises the melting point of paraffin, allows scents and colors to blend evenly in the wax, and gives the paraffin some of the qualities of more expensive waxes, allowing candle makers to charge more for a relatively cheap candle.
• Microcrystallines are a group of substances derived from petroleum that are added to candles to change the texture of the wax, add gloss, increase opacity, etc.
• Polyethylenes are produced from natural gas (or by "cracking" petroleum naptha). They add gloss, luster, or clear crystals to wax.
• Other common additives are uv inhibitors, release agents, and softeners (vegetable, mineral, or animal derived oils).

By doing a little research, you will find some pretty interesting things.   Interesting things like the fact that paraffin starts as the dark grayish-black sludge which oozes out of the backside of petroleum refineries. It is, in fact, the rejected waste that is leftover after producing many of the other common petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, kerosene, other oils, pavement, etc. This dirty black waste is then bleached with industrial (100%) strength chlorine bleach (creating dioxins, which are toxic).   This white ooze is then processed into solid paraffin using various carcinogenic, solidifying chemicals, like acrolyn.

Paraffin wax is then sold to many very nice companies and people who add various other texturizing and beautifying chemicals, artificial dyes, and stinky chemical-based, synthetic fragrances.When synthetic fragrances are burned, they produce toxic fluoro-carbons and other polluting by-products. There are many possible dangers of breathing in synthetic fragrances, the least threatening would be that inhaling these fluoro-carbons damages the receptors in our nasal passages that detect scent, and in the long run, they diminish the overall abilities of your olfactory senses  requiring people to buy increasingly stronger smelling candles to even be able to enjoy them.

Truly natural aromatherapy candles made with natural waxes and  pure essential oils don't come easy.  Just think about it, they dont squeeze pure vanilla pods, at $13.00/pod, into those sweet smelling, vanilla candles that sell for $9.99 at your local corner mart. Synthetic vanilla fragrance oil is actually made from piperonal, which is lice killer.  It just makes sense to educate yourselves and the people you care about...Who wants to be breathing in synthetic chemicals and leftover petroleum products that not even the diesel industry wanted.