How do you protect yourself from the dangers of candlemaking?

[Dolcibugie]

Hello everyone, I'm an Italian candlemaker (sorry for my bad English).

These are some of my works:

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/damitajo85/foto0079.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/damitajo85/foto0082.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/damitajo85/foto0086.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d173/damitajo85/foto0103.jpg

I came here to ask you if you use gloves and mask to protect your skin and your lungs while you make candles. I'm worried about the risks my hobby can cause to my health.

Are paraffin and stearin smokes dangerous? And what about touching candle dyes and fragrances?

I always work in my kitchen, keeping the window open, is it enough?

Thank you for your help

[CaftCandles]

I came here to ask you if you use gloves and mask to protect your skin and your lungs while you make candles. I'm worried about the risks my hobby can cause to my health.

Are paraffin and stearin smokes dangerous? And what about touching candle dyes and fragrances?

I always work in my kitchen, keeping the window open, is it enough?

Thank you for your help

I personally do not use gloves because I use special utensils to prevent contact with my skin. Anything that smokes are harmful but your candles if wicked correctly shouldn't smoke. If they smoke a little you will not get sick but you shouldn't breath in the smoke for very long. Most Paraffin Waxes are considered to be food grade which can be eaten, but I don't recommend doing that. All Paraffin Waxes are skin safe and do not require gloves to be handled. Stearine is a natural product derived from Animal or Plant matter and are also safe to be handled without gloves. Fragrance Oils and Liquid Dyes have chemicals and carrier oils that can be harmful or irritate your skin. As with handling anything containing chemicals I would recommend using gloves if you will be in contact with them for an extended period of time, just to be safe. If you get a little on you just wash it off as soon as you can with warm soapy water and you will be fine. The chemicals in Fragrance Oils and Dyes are not deadly but may cause a rash or irritate sensitive skin so just wash you hands after handling them. You can keep your windows open in you wish but the purpose of making scented candles is to enjoy the fragrances and therefore are safe to breath. Some people do not like extra strong fragrances while making candles so it's up to you if you want the windows open or not.

[Stella1952]

Welcome Dolcibugie!

Your candles are beautiful and making me hungry!!!

The smoke from anything can irritate your airway, especially if you have allergies, asthma, are sensitive to smoke or fragrances or have a chronic lung condition. Some people who have migraine headaches have problems with the smoke from candles and especially the strong fragrances. Good ventilation when making and burning candles is a great idea. Wearing a respirator helps.

I do not wear gloves while making candles, but if I had sensitive skin, I would. Undiluted Fragrance oil is not meant for skin contact and certainly not for eyes, so avoid contact with it and keep your hands away from your face when making candles. The dyes I use are skin-safe, but I try not to get them on my hands because then I will make a mess everywhere I touch.

[Dolcibugie]

Thank you very much for your answers. In Italy home candlemaking is not very common and I have had some difficulties in finding the waxes and the utensils. I bought them in a shop that sells things for hobbies (such as ceramic, glass, metals and so on), but they have no warning labels. I don't make candles every day but recenlty I read about the risks of burning paraffin candles and I thought that breathing and touching wax could be dangerous, so I came here to ask you your opinion. Your answers reassured me, but I think I will start to wear gloves when I work with mouldable wax, which i dye with powder dye (the only one I found in that shop).

[jeanie353]

Hi Dolcibugie

Is that gel wax you have going on there too on picture 0103? Or did you put an additive for shine to appear as gel on the candle? You were able to get quite a bit of very nice items made with small resources from the hobby shop.

I don't wear gloves either. I have skin safe and non-skin safe FOs here but I also don't have sensitive skin except my face. If you are worried about the concerns of health in making candles there is a ton of into on the internet and even candle supplier sites many times have a lot of info past just selling stuff.

My only advice would be to sort out the fact from fallacy on the net. There are paraffin bashers out there that make false claims mixed in with the articles where the info is true. There may be soy bashers as well. I personally haven't seen any but one never knows.

Have fun and good luck with your hobby. Oh also, if you give those candles out to anyone to burn, you may want to get warning stickers on the bottom. Here in the States they have to have them attached before they go out our doors. Not sure about Italy.

[Ravens]

Welcome to the forum!

Like your "Dolcibugie"; that means "Sweet Lies", doesn't it?

Good luck :-)

[Dolcibugie]

Is that gel wax you have going on there too on picture 0103? Or did you put an additive for shine to appear as gel on the candle? You were able to get quite a bit of very nice items made with small resources from the hobby shop.

Hello jeanie and thank you for your compliments! The shine you see is gel wax, with a little bit of brown dye, just to give a "baked" look to the mouldable wax apples. I apply it on the small fruit pies, too, but it's very delicate and can't be touched or it comes away, so I'm planning to try some candle varnish (the one available in that shop should give a shiny coat to the wax), and put it just on the fruits... What do you think about it? :smiley2:

I printed some warning labels to put in the boxes in which I put the candles. Anyway, I have just given my candles as presents to my friends by now, I didn't sell the candles yet!

Edited January 19, 2012 by Dolcibugie

[Dolcibugie]

Welcome to the forum!

Like your "Dolcibugie"; that means "Sweet Lies", doesn't it?

Good luck :-)

Thank you Ravens! You're right, it means "sweet lies", but "bugie" in ancient Italian means "candles" too. So it's a small word game: my candles lie because they look like desserts, but they are "candles=bugie" too.

[jeanie353]

Hello jeanie and thank you for your compliments! The shine you see is gel wax, with a little bit of brown dye, just to give a "baked" look to the mouldable wax apples. I apply it on the small fruit pies, too, but it's very delicate and can't be touched or it comes away, so I'm planning to try some candle varnish (the one available in that shop should give a shiny coat to the wax), and put it just on the fruits... What do you think about it? :smiley2:

Very nice work on the gel. It does give it the baked look. I haven't ran into where it would go away on me if touched but you are working with limited products and probably very different products than we have here. Candle varnish sounds neat. They also have some stuff over here (never used it though) that you can put on to give the candle a gloss. I think its mainly used for pillars. If you do have it available it may mess up your wicking some if it is indeed meant for pillar burning.

Maybe someone else with more experience on those products will chime in.

GL

Edited January 19, 2012 by jeanie353

[Dolcibugie]

They also have some stuff over here (never used it though) that you can put on to give the candle a gloss. I think its mainly used for pillars.

The varnish I was talkin about is for pillar candles.

Here is a link to the product... http://www.hobbyland.eu/eng/prod/00000003/00000029/0/8889.htm

I think it will work and will make a glossy and hard coat on the wax it is applied on. This would be great for my small fruit pies because fruits are made of mouldable wax, which is very soft and can be spoiled by touching it.

Is my English understandable?

[Chefmom]

I am sensitive to harsh smells, and I have found that some of the fragrances make me quite ill. Before Christmas I was pouring candles each day for gifts and I kept it to two different fragrances at a time, but I was sure to pour similar fragrances. However one day came and I poured five different scents. That was way too much and I had to open doors and windows and run a fan along with my stoves exhaust fan.

That night we ate out and let the house air out. I keep it to one scent a day now and I'm no longer sick. However I can't handle ANY scent that is coconut based. It's an instant reaction, I vomit if I smell coconut. I can handle the little bit of fresh coconut in a cookie recipe or on a cake, but if I smell the coconut flavorings or scents look out!

All smoke isn't good for you, and I would do further research on paraffin. There is a lot of very wrong info out there. People seem to forget that oil is a natural product, and so paraffin is a natural (refined) product. If it's a carbon footprint kind of thing look into commercial agriculture. There is a LOT of petroleum AND natural gas in the production of soy products and in the pesticides and herbicides and then the refining process uses energy as well. Neither outweighs the other in my opinion. They both are what they are. It's personal choices that leads you one way or the other.

My biggest concern is ruining my floors with the wax, so I have a stack of newspaper that I lay down on the floor and all over the work surface. I go through a lot of paper towels as well!!

Tami

[Pam W]

My biggest concern is ruining my floors with the wax,

I have no problem getting wax off my floors.....it's the spilled dye that is the killer!!!

[ChandlerWicks]

English is great!

The varnish I was talkin about is for pillar candles.

Here is a link to the product... http://www.hobbyland.eu/eng/prod/00000003/00000029/0/8889.htm

I think it will work and will make a glossy and hard coat on the wax it is applied on. This would be great for my small fruit pies because fruits are made of mouldable wax, which is very soft and can be spoiled by touching it.

Is my English understandable?

[Dolcibugie]

All smoke isn't good for you, and I would do further research on paraffin.

It's very hard to find informations in Italian. I did my best to look for informations in US sites, but the results were not satisfying. What do you use for making candles? Which wax?

[Dolcibugie]

English is great!

Thank you! :-D

[Chefmom]

What do you use for making candles? Which wax?

I am using straight paraffin right now, a melt point of 145 I believe. Years ago I bought some slabs on clearance ($8 for 10-pounds) and they have just been sitting in my pantry. I picked up wick and some molds and quite a few books, but I never really dived into making them until about 8 months ago. Last year there were some electric power outages locally (not my house, but many around us) and some people were without power for up to three weeks. All from one wind storm. It got me to thinking about having candles on hand in an emergency. I have the oil lamps from when I was a child and a couple gallons of oil. I don't like to carry those around the house, if they spill and break it would be a house fire.

So I got out the books, and the molds and slabs of paraffin and started playing with it. I found that straight paraffin was fine for my emergency candles, but if I wanted something pretty to look at or strongly scented I would need to add things to the base. I started reading online, getting confused, and reading some more. I didn't make sense of a lot of it until I started making my own and burning them. Once I saw for myself what a too big wick or a too small wick were doing, too hard wax or too soft wax etc. Then everything I was reading started to "click".

Along the way I found the wonderful world of fragrances. I have purchased scented candles in the past, and now I make my own. I am very chemically sensitive, so I'm finding that some scents have very strong reactions, and I'm able to use others. As usual it's trial and error. I've been a soap maker for 10 years or so, and so adding candles to that seemed like a natural step.

So, I will continue to play with my paraffin slabs, and I now am using a "paraffin-soy" blend IGI-6006. It's very easy to use, much easier to measure than paraffin, it just cuts with a knife!! So far things are going smoothly and my pillar candles and votives are very nice. I'm still trialing wicks for containers before I start selling them.

Tami

[Dolcibugie]

Thank you for your answer, Tami!

[HorseScentS]

Here in the USA, the building supply stores have masks with respirators: http://www.lowes.com/pl_Safety+Masks_4294753748_4294937087_

[Candybee]

When I make candles I always wear my respirator mask. Its OSHA compliant. It catches all the vapors and fumes that come from making candles and pouring toxic FOs. I can't smell a thing when I make candles. You have to get used to that but its worth it. I used to cough for days when I made candles but my cough is gone and I am protecting my lungs and feel good about it.

I don't wear any other protective gear unless I am making soy candles. I found I had to wear gloves when using soy or I would get these horrible skin rashes on my hands from handling it and cleaning out my pour pots.

The only other thing I do is lock the cats in a seperate bedroom on candlemaking days. After I am done making candles I air out all the rooms before letting the cats out. I don't want to hurt their precious little lungs either.

[Mountain Soy Candle]

I can find something very dangerous with those candles she made. The look so fricken real I might mistakenly eat one and that would be dangerous and unhealthy!!

Mike

[barncat]

ive done more damage to myself doing paperwork then making candles...darn papercuts anyway :cry2:

[Dolcibugie]

I can find something very dangerous with those candles she made. The look so fricken real I might mistakenly eat one and that would be dangerous and unhealthy!!

Mike

ahahaah! Mike! So funny!!! They are very hard, it's impossible to take a bite out of them!

[Dolcibugie]

When I make candles I always wear my respirator mask. Its OSHA compliant. It catches all the vapors and fumes that come from making candles and pouring toxic FOs. I can't smell a thing when I make candles. You have to get used to that but its worth it. I used to cough for days when I made candles but my cough is gone and I am protecting my lungs and feel good about it.

Thank you for your precious answer, Candybee. Would you have started to use the respirator if you had not noticed the cough?

[Candybee]

Thank you for your precious answer, Candybee. Would you have started to use the respirator if you had not noticed the cough?

Probably not as soon. I had always thought about getting one but it didn't seem urgent until I noticed the cough right after pouring days. It only took about 4-5 yrs of pouring before I developed a cough. There was someone who posted a few years back about how her lungs were damaged from ingesting FO vapors. But it wasn't until I got that cough that I realised how serious the danger was. These are strong chemicals and I encourage anyone making candles and handling FOs to use a respirator mask. It can save your lungs.

[Dolcibugie]

I'll buy one soon. Thank you very much.