The Benefits of Natural Candles Scented with Essential Oils
Rachel Hendry
What are the benefits of using natural candles scented with essential oils?
In this video I’m talking all about this and why you might choose candles (or wax melts) scented with natural essential oils rather than artificial fragrance.
I hope you find it helpful.
(If you’d prefer to read rather than watch, please see the transcript below the video.)
Rachel x
Video Transcript:
Hello, it’s Rachel from Scents of the Wild here. And in this video, I’m going to be talking about the benefits of using natural candles scented with essential oils rather than artificial fragrance. Also, natural wax melts scented with essential oils rather than artificial fragrance. Why you might choose to use candles and wax melts scented with natural essential oils rather than artificial fragrance.
So, it’s probably a good idea to start by talking about what exactly essential oils are because I know there’s sometimes some confusion around what they are. So, essential oils are perhaps most simply described as the aromatic essence of a plant. So, certain aromatic plants, for instance peppermint which I picked earlier from the garden and rosemary, they have an aroma and the aroma comes from the essential oils that the plants contain.
So, what we can do with aromatic plants is to steam distill them - um, or for certain plants, particularly the citrus fruits we can… they use cold expression to remove the essential oils. So, the peel of the citrus fruits contain the essential oil, little sacks of essential oil, and they can press the peel of the fruit and extract the essential oil that way… But for herbs like this, they would be steam distilled. So as the steam rises, it collects the essential oils and the essential oils can be siphoned off and bottle and we can use them for things like naturally fragrancing our candles and wax melts and other products. They’re used a lot in the food industry as well, things like peppermint and orange oil.
So, that’s what essential oils are. Essential oils are natural - they come from plants. Artificial Fragrance is created in a lab - it’s obviously not natural.
So the first reason that you might choose candles and wax melts scented with essential oils rather than artificial fragrance is maybe you just don’t like artificial fragrance. I know I’m not that keen on products scented with artificial fragrance. Their scent can often be very overpowering, whereas with a candle scented with essential oils, what you get is a more natural, gentle, subtle scent which some people just find preferable over artificial fragrance.
The second reason is maybe you’re trying to avoid using artificial chemical-based products in your home like I do, as much as possible.
About six or seven years ago, I started to using more natural products in my home, natural skincare, that type of thing just because I believe that natural products are best for our health and wellbeing. So, if you believe that too then perhaps you would prefer using candles, wax melts and other products naturally fragranced with essential oils.
The third reason is some people experience headaches and nausea and other side-effects from artificial fragrance which they find that when they use products scented with essential oils they don’t experience such side effects. So that would be another reason that you might choose candles and wax melts scented with essential oils.
Um, when I first thought about launching Scents of the Wild, when I first was so excited about creating natural candles and, well not wax melts at that stage, that came later… Em, but candles. I always knew that I was going to naturally scent them with essential oils and that’s for a couple of reasons. Well, the first reason is what I’ve already mentioned before: I try to avoid using artificially scented products wherever possible.
The second reason is that I’ve ben a student of aromatherapy for the last 6 or 7 years. Although I’m not a qualified aromatherapist, I use essential oils every single day for skincare, as a natural perfume, to scent and cleanse my home, so I always knew that I was going to use essential oils - like this: rose geranium, grapefruit… Oh, you just get such beautiful essential oils that we can play with and create our own lovely scents with… Yeah, I always just knew that I was going to… that they were going to be completely natural because I’m a big believer in the power of natural products to promote health and wellbeing.
So these are some of the reasons you might choose candles, wax melts, other products scented with essential oils rather than artificial fragrance.
Essential oils have been used for thousands of years to help with physical and mental ailments, to scent and cleanse homes,… I believe the Romans, they used to… they loved essential oils so much they used to scent their walls with essential oils… for celebrations, prayer, for all kinds of occasions. So we’ve been using them for such a long time.