Lavender candles are a product chosen by many people because of the convenience they bring, such as helping to eliminate odors, creating a relaxing and comfortable space after a tiring day or week.
However, can you use lavender candles if your family has young children? Today, we will answer the question together: Are lavender candles safe for babies?
Should Lavender Scented Candles Be Used For Children?
Based on statistics from functional units, it has been shown that: Around 2% of the world’s population is allergic to fragrances.
People with allergies often experience sinusitis, headache, stuffy nose, sore throat, burning eyes, dizziness; it Even affects pregnant women and young children and, in more extreme cases, can lead to cancer.
It is explained by the ingredients in synthetic deodorant candles, often including Formaldehyde, Toluene, Benzene derivatives, Methylene chloride. Some of these substances have been shown to cause cancer or congenital disabilities for young children. It can be that Benzene will reduce red blood cells, causing anemia and bleeding.
When Benzene gets on the skin, it can cause itching and dryness. If it gets in the eye, it will cause burning pain and damage the cornea. And yet, families who abuse scented candles can damage the immature nervous system of children. In addition, the parts of the wick core of lead, standing gac are also the cause of toxicity in scented candles.
When a candle burns, lead is released into the air as an odor. If young children are often indoors, they will accidentally inhale a lot of gas from this candle smoke. In the long run, toxins will accumulate in the body. Manifestations are challenging to recognize but mainly include bleeding gums, gingivitis, enteritis, or digestive disorders…
Therefore, if you want to burn scented candles in your home, the general rule is to choose products made entirely from nature. Thanks to that, your baby, as well as family members, can avoid some respiratory diseases.
Besides, a tip on making your candles less toxic is always to keep the wick clean, remove the soot in the place you light it to help keep the house clean and fragrant.
How Much Should Candles Be Used Near Babies?
Whatever scent or candle you use, don’t use it near your baby. The reason is that babies always need fresh air to breathe, rest, and relax. Therefore, the room or place where the baby lies should always be well ventilated.
You should limit the time you burn scented candles in a day. You should only use it about 3-4 hours or less in a day and not use it 24/7.
Limiting the burning time will also help saturate the air in the whole house, which will help babies and the elderly and even animals not to be affected too much by the respiratory system.
The best way is to use scented candles to relax and calm down when you want your child. Therefore, you can consider burning candles before your baby goes to bed or during mealtime because this will make your baby sleep better and more peacefully.
Do Strong Scents Harm The Baby?
In the early stages of birth, your baby begins to experience the world around him. Therefore, the baby’s parts are still relatively immature, and in terms of smell, they will recognize their parents through their distinctive scents.
When that particular scent is overwhelmed by perfumes, lavender candles, the natural smell of the parents is easily lost.
It makes the baby feel uncomfortable by the artificial scent. Therefore, difficult babies may cry as a way to “struggle” and get back the natural perfume instead of those artificial scents.
Parents also need to know that the brain controls the sense of smell. So your baby can also correlate with a long period of scented candles, including the lavender candle. As just shared above, this can affect their respiratory tract.
Many studies have shared that, in the world of scented candles and scents, experts have found that babies can be soothed when colic using lavender essential oil. Or another study also shared that the smell of lavender relaxes a premature baby.
However, suppose you want to use essential oils or lavender candles. In that case, it is necessary to consult a doctor first to avoid affecting the respiratory tract or other parts of your baby’s body.
Anyway, you should still keep the living space in your home with natural scents instead of artificial fragrances containing many aromas to ensure a living area for the baby in particular and other family members.
How To Choose Safe Lavender Candles For Babies
Potential dangers
In fact, not all scented candles are guaranteed in terms of quality and safety. Because, currently on the market, many types of deodorizing scented candles are processed and manufactured. When tested by experts, they found that they contained harmful chemical ingredients and dangerous synthetic fragrances.
When exposed to a lot of these chemicals will lead to body poisoning, significantly affecting the health of you and your family. Specifically, the risk of skin allergies, respiratory failure, and cancer is the most dangerous disease.
In addition, these unidentified scented candles cause infertility in both humans and children. Therefore, you need to pay attention to safety when choosing a deodorizing scented candle.
Guide for selection
In the market, the real and the fake are mixed; you can hardly distinguish. To ensure the safety of children as well as family members, when choosing to buy candles, you need to pay attention to a few issues that we share right away:
- Look carefully at the ingredients of scented candles: When buying scented candles, you need to read carefully about the product’s ingredients. If you see candles containing ingredients such as Formaldehyde, Benzene derivatives, Toluene rings, then you should remove them from the list. The reason is that these are toxic chemical components, which are dangerous to humans.
- Choose scented candles from reputable brands: It can be that the experience of choosing to buy a perfect deodorant scented candle is based on the brand that produces the product. Scented candles from famous brands will be strictly censored for quality to ensure safety before being put on the market. It would help if you were careful before the offers to advertise cheap candles that are unclear about the origin.
- Choose mildly scented candles: When buying scented candles for families with children and pregnant women, you need to choose products carefully. After checking whether the composition of the scented candles is safe and benign for pregnant women and children. Next, you should choose products with mild, natural scents to ensure the health of both mother and baby.
What Is The Difference Between Scented And Unscented Candles?
Scented candles can emit a pleasant scent, a scent that makes the mind clear and helps relieve headaches; scented candles are made from vegetable waxes such as butter wax, Palm wax, soy wax, and many other waxes make candles very close to humans.
When you buy scented candles, pay attention to the scent of the candles. When purchasing scented candles, you need to use them all the time, don’t leave them on for too long.
It will cause their scent to decrease over time; when the scented candles burn, they will bring a relaxed atmosphere, making you more comfortable and awaken more apples, and help you sleep deeper.
When using scented candles that have not been exhausted or bought and have not been used, please store the scented candles in a cool place.
Avoid being closed and disturbed by rats because scented candles emit a pleasant fragrance that attracts visitors. During the shopping process, you should choose a line of scented candles made from natural ingredients, limiting the use of chemicals that can cause some side effects when we use them in the house.
However, according to many people, scented candles are pretty toxic because they contain substances such as paraffin or other ingredients such as formaldehyde, toluene, Benzene derivatives, and methylene chloride.
Therefore, scented candles create an odor aroma and relaxation for users but are not safe. Especially for young children, scented candles should not be available 24/7.
Therefore, many people believe that you should choose unscented candles to ensure safety for the respiratory system of children.
However, no matter what type of candle you choose, you need to be very careful during use to lead to a fire!
Is It Ok To Use Unscented Candles?
As shared above, scented candles often contain a certain amount of paraffin. When you burn them, they can form Benzene, toluene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein and eventually create black soot in the air.
Therefore, if you want to burn candles as a way to deodorize or decorate your home, you can refer to the odorless candles on the market today.
How Can I Minimize Indoor Air Pollution From Candles?
Suppose you are a person who regularly burns candles in the house. In that case, you should choose products from bee, soy, or grass oil because these ingredients are pretty safe for users, non-toxic, and allergic phenomena about the respiratory tract.
Here are some ways to help you minimize indoor air pollution from candles:
- Limit the use of scented candles of unknown origin or containing a large amount of paraffin in the ingredients.
- Always make sure the candle’s wick is the right size to avoid the candle wick burning out and causing black soot for the department.
- It would help if you cut the wick to about ¼ of it before you start lighting it.
- You should not burn candles in a box with a narrow mouth because this will make the airflow unstable and lead to the flickering of the candle.
- You should put the candle in a pretty small glass to light and decorate your house.
- Do not reuse candle cups with too much residue or dirt on the surrounding surface.
- You should use 1-2 hours or at most 3-4 hours/day and turn it off, let it cool and cut the wick for subsequent use. Candlesticks should not be used 24/7.
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What Are VOCs?
VOCs contain carbon or other elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, sulfur, or nitrogen. Many people often use VOCs as solvents such as paint thinners, lacquer thinners, degreasers, and highly effective dry cleaning liquids.
Conclusion
Thus, today’s article has helped you answer the question Are lavender candles safe for babies. As can be seen, you should not use lavender candles or other scented candles when the family has babies because this can affect the children’s breathing. Hopefully, the above sharing has helped you get more helpful information when using candles!