Let me start this blog post with a confession: I LOVE candles! I love how candlelight looks and makes me feel—calm and introspective. I love the way scented candles smell when burning, although, sadly for me, with my family’s chemical sensitivities, I have really had to curb my use of anything scented in our home. I even love the act of lighting a candle—just doing it sometimes calms me down. So, when MicroBalance Health Products released their EC3 Air Purification Candles, I had to try them out. Could I actually light a candle to help clean for mold? Was this too good and easy to be true?
Well, to answer those questions and since this blog is about cleaning for mold, here is the rundown on how the candles work:
When you light the wick of an EC3 candle, the heat from the flame aerosolizes the mold-killing botanicals in the soy wax around it. As the aerosol disperses from the candle, and moves around the room, it cleanses the floating mold spores from the air. The candles have been independently lab tested and have been proven to reduce the mold spore count in a room from too numerous to count to nearly zero in less than 3 hours. Pretty impressive, I think.
Each candle is packaged inside a tin container, and each has its own tight-fitting lid. This makes the candles easy to pack and to take with you wherever you go. I also like the packaging, because I don’t worry about the candle burning down, and then catching anything on fire. Especially, because, usually when I use them, I light the candles and leave them out on non-flammable surfaces for a few hours at a time. That way, they can do their job. The candles are also free of any scents or dyes, in order that their use does not cause negative reactions in people with chemical sensitivities. When you use the EC3 Candles in conjunction with the EC3 Spray on the areas where mold spores can settle, like bedding or furniture, they can help to make rooms much more tolerable for mold allergy sufferers.
Now that all of that is out of the way, I would like to tell you how I like use the candles.
- In the afternoon, when my kids come home from school and hang up their backpacks in the kitchen hallway, I light an EC3 Candle and let it burn in the sitting area of the kitchen while we do homework at the table. Their school clothes and backpacks have been who knows where, and the candle burning helps insure that any mold spores coming inside our home aren’t going everywhere and getting all over everything. I also like the calming effect the burning candle has on everyone’s mood.
I put the candle on the little coffee table in the sitting nook of the kitchen. I love that while it is burning, and the kids are doing their homework, that it is cleaning the air and helping us stay healthy.
- Whenever we have to travel and are staying in a hotel, I pack EC3 candles in my suitcase. (Hotels are notorious for mold. For another time, HERE is a link to a great article on hotels and mold). As soon as we get to our room, I light a candle and place it on a surface where it can burn and purify the room’s air, so that it will not aggravate our mold allergies. I continue to light the candles each day to keep the air in the hotel room as mold free as possible during our stay. I also bring my EC3 Mold Solution Spray and mist the bedding, carpet and furniture surfaces. But, this post is about the candles, so I digress…
- When I am doing my heavy dusting in our home, about once per week, I like to light and burn a few candles in the rooms where I am working. Whenever you dust, you are disturbing the dust particles and releasing them into the air. The dust is food for mold and may contain mold spores. By dusting, especially with something like the Homemade EC3 Dusting Spray (include the link to the post), you are removing the food for the mold, which is a great preventative measure. But, by also burning the EC3 Candles as you do so, you are cleaning the air of the mold spores that could get into your nose and make you sick.
So, now for the fun part: I have been given a few EC3 Air Purification Candles to giveaway to a few loyal readers! In order to win one of the candles, you simply have to click through to the Facebook page. You can also click on the Facebook icon at the bottom of this post. Once on the Facebook page, please post a comment about how you would use your candle. I will randomly choose winners from the comments. For extra entries, you can “Like” my Facebook page, and/or share the post on your personal page. I will notify the lucky winners next week. Good luck!
