The Toxic Truth About Home Fragrance When you consider the fundamental reasons for using home fragrance, whether it be a plug-in device, candle, wax melt, reed diffuser or a room spray, what springs to mind for you? We’d imagine the desire to improve the ambience of your home by infusing a beautiful array of scents into the atmosphere. Not to mention, to make the space feel more inviting and homely, both for your family as well as any visiting guests. At least that’s how we do things here at Four Scents! If you’re familiar with Four Scents Botanical, you might have noticed we’re proud to distinguish ourselves as a company that uses natural ingredients. But for those who are unaware of what the vast majority of other home fragrance companies are adding to their products, there are some important things you need to know. Here is why you need to get clued up on the importance of the Four Scents difference for the health and wellbeing of you and your family. What Is A Synthetic Fragrance? A synthetic fragrance means the scent is lab derived rather than using the real ingredient. Synthetic fragrances are everywhere and not just in home fragrance, but in perfumes, skincare and even cleaning products. We challenge you to take a look at the ingredients of some of your favourite fragrance or cleaning brands right now if you don’t believe us! Sadly, there is a large disconnect between the way nature intended us to experience various scents such as thyme, lemongrass, neroli and geranium and how the majority of the home fragrance industry delivers them to you. When a fragrance is natural and botanical in origin, the plant is distilled or cold pressed to extract the fragrance. We then directly add the essential oil this creates into our soya wax bean melt to create our scented candles, or we infuse the oils into our reed diffusers. We hand pour our candles locally meaning we can oversee every aspect of the process to ensure we retain the highest level of quality within each of our products. Plus, this ensures we can trace every aspect of the production process from the original plant the fragrance was distilled from to the moment your chosen product arrives at your door. But what the vast majority of the home fragrance industry does is create the entire fragrance in a lab meaning at no time does nature or indeed that real fragrance ever get used in your product. Even if some of the real product has been used, it will often be watered down in a lab with lots of synthetic preservatives added to cut costs with no consideration of quality. While you might think faking the fragrance of real plants is bad enough, have you ever stopped to think about how they are creating the likes of ‘stripped leather’ or worse still, ‘unicorn fluff’? Spoiler alert: it involves a lot of chemicals. Why Is Synthetic Fragrance Bad? We do allow in a few puns to our blog, meaning we could wax lyrical about why synthetic fragrance is bad for your scented candles for days on end. But alas, here is a quick summary. There are many health concerns surrounding the usage of synthetic or toxic ingredients, especially when they will be released into the air of your home. Just for context, some of the synthetic ingredients that at the time of writing are perfectly legal to add to home fragrance products in the UK include formaldehyde and paraffin wax. As paraffin wax is derived from petroleum, burning a candle containing paraffin wax is essentially like burning fossil fuels in your home. These chemicals are known as BTEX for short, standing for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, and have links with various health conditions including nervous system damage and fertility challenges. In addition, some of the symptoms associated with synthetic or toxic ingredients include: Dizziness - Headaches - Forgetfulness - Loss of coordination - Sinus problems - Throat irritation - Worsened asthma - Watery eyes Long term exposure to synthetic fragrances has even been linked with cancer and kidney damage. So, that’s even more reason to clean up your home by removing synthetic fragrances in favour of natural scents. Doing so with the likes of Four Scents candles and reed diffusers will allow you to enjoy beautiful home fragrance in a way that’s clean, without losing out on the potency of the natural scents. Aka: you’ll get the best of both worlds! Children & Pets Spare a thought for your children playing in your living room while breathing in synthetic fragrance. Not to mention the effect on pets, especially on any dogs, who have a sense of smell that can be between 10,000 and 100,000 times more powerful than humans. It’s all well and good avoiding harsh cleaning agents to protect your children and pets, but if you then introduce synthetic or toxic ingredients into the environment in the form of candles, room sprays or plug-ins, has your mission really been achieved? When you light a Four Scents candle or place one of our reed diffusers in your bedroom, hallway, living room or bathroom - you won't have to worry about what we’ve put in our products and if they are safe for you, your children or your pets. How Do You Know If A Candle Is Toxic? Our best piece of advice is do not purchase a candle or home fragrance without having a quick read of the ingredients list first. We know it’s tempting just to purchase a candle based on a brand name or even a special deal, but this is no guarantee the product is using all natural, safe ingredients. Yes, even if it’s made by a popular brand! Here at Four Scents, you can view the list of ingredients each of our products have by clicking the ‘ingredients’ tab. The candles themselves are made from natural soya beans that are eco-friendly and sustainably sourced. Better still, if you have any further questions, we are a UK based company and we’re always available if you have any product queries. You can even join the Four Scents community over on our Facebook and Instagram page where we talk all things candles and home fragrance. We’d love to see you over there! Are All Candles Toxic? No, but unfortunately the vast majority think they can get away with using toxic ingredients in their products and charging a premium for them. Don’t be fooled by fancy packaging either! As we mentioned above, please read the ingredients of any candle or home fragrance you wish to purchase. If lots of chemicals are listed - you have your answer about whether it’s toxic or not. The Four Scents Difference We’re proud to be different here at Four Scents and we’re not shy in telling people about it. Furthermore, we’ve worked hard to address all the current issues within the home fragrance industry before launching our brand. Here is an overview of our core ethos, including what we say no to as a brand and what we welcome with open arms. The Four Scents Yes's Concentrated Botanical Essences - Plant Based Soy (100% Vegan Friendly Formulas) - Sustainably Sourced Ingredients - GM Free Now you know what we don’t stand for, here are some of the key points that are super important to us. A good place to start given we’re a home fragrance brand, is that we prefer to use the real plant specified within our ingredients. So, if you purchase a candle that says it contains the likes of geranium, cedarwood or bergamot - it means we have distilled the actual plant into an essential oil ready to be added within our scented candles or reed diffusers. As well as only using natural ingredients within our fragrances, the wax we use for our candles is plant based soy, which is a vegan friendly formula. We leave the beeswax for the bees. We also ensure that every product we do use - even down to our packaging - has been sustainably sourced, and we also encourage our customers to repurpose or recycle their packaging too. Finally, all of our products are also GM free, meaning they haven’t been genetically modified, once again avoiding any nasty chemicals from entering your home. The Four Scents No’s Parabens - Paraffins - Animal Testing We see no reason to use parabens or paraffin within candles or reed diffusers. Other than being driven by profit rather than looking to provide a quality experience for customers. You can probably guess which side of the debate we sit on! That’s right, our products contain no parabens or paraffin. Instead, we use natural botanical ingredients within our product formulas. All of which means our products are highly unlikely to give you headaches or dizziness and are safer for children and pets. We also don’t believe that animals should have to suffer in order to make a candle or reed diffuser. Therefore, we also do not test on animals. We also consider the general health of your pets by avoiding toxic ingredients in our products too. Clean Candle & Natural Home Fragrance FAQ We’re keen to answer some of your top questions about the differences between what the vast majority of candle manufacturers and home fragrance brands do versus how we do things here at Four Scents. Don’t see your question below? Follow us on social media or drop us a message and we’ll get back to you. Why Is Beeswax Bad? Beeswax can be used to make candles and in all fairness, it is considered non-toxic. However, beeswax isn’t something we’d use in our candles here at Four Scents because it’s not vegan friendly. In addition, the demand for beeswax can lead to unethical practices including the cruel mishandling of bees and their hives. Given how important bees are for the wider ecosystem, we’d rather let bees get on with their ‘beesness’ rather than harvest their wax to make candles. Instead, our 100% plant based soya beans do a beautiful job and are sustainably sourced. All without the need to disturb any hard working bees. Why Is Paraffin Wax Bad? As noted above, paraffin wax contains a whole host of chemicals that are released when burned. Therefore, we do not use paraffin wax in our candles and highly recommend anyone wanting to remove synthetic or toxic ingredients from their home also avoid any products containing paraffin. What Are Non Toxic Oils For Fragrance? Four Scents candles and reed diffusers are made using natural botanical essential oils. We have created a careful blend of different essential oils within each of our candles and reed diffusers, ensuring that our products are not only safe and non-toxic but that the blends smell beautiful too. If you’d like to learn more about each of our ingredients, if you click on our menu and select the particular ingredient, it will take you to a page where we go into further detail about the principles and benefits of that ingredient, along with showing you which of our products contain it. Four Scents - Natural Home Fragrance & Non Toxic Candles UK We hope we’ve given you valuable insight into what differentiates Four Scents from what a lot of what the home fragrance industry has to offer. Our mission is to deliver products that are truly beautiful inside and out, and this can only happen if our products are natural, non-toxic and sustainable. Want to experience the Four Scents difference for yourself or for a loved one? Check out our exquisite range of luxury scented candles and reed diffusers. We also have bespoke gift options if you’d like to treat friends or family. You can also drop us a message if you’d like to know more about our products. We sell our products to homeowners as well as commercial clients including those within the hotel and spa industries, so we are always happy to hear from you.
