Candles can be festive or relaxing, practical or luxurious—but choosing paraffin candles can actually be hazardous to your health. Think about the black soot you can see around the tops of jar candles. That soot comes from paraffin smoke. Paraffin is a byproduct of refining oil, and can contain harmful chemicals.

At Soaps & Scents, we offer pure soy candles that are guaranteed to offer a cleaner burn, along with many other benefits. Here’s a quick list of why we will always prefer soy over paraffin:

  • Longer burn time makes for a great value: Soy wax and soy candles cost more than paraffin, but they also burn quite a bit longer. When you factor in the extended burn time, their price is comparable.
  • Better for your health: Paraffin wax contains probable carcinogens and toxic chemicals, including toluene, benzene, methyl ethyl ketone and naphthalene. With 90 percent less soot than paraffin, you’re less likely to inhale toxic substances.
  • Better for your home: The soot from paraffin candles doesn’t just go in your lungs. It can also build up on your walls and penetrate your upholstery. Soy is also 100 percent biodegradable, which actually makes spilled wax much easier to clean up than paraffin.
  • Better for the environment: Since paraffin is an oil byproduct, it’s dependent on nonrenewable resources. Soy, on the other hand, is natural and renewable, making it the environmentally conscious choice. As you know, it’s biodegradable, which means you’re not contributing to toxic waste that can linger for decades. Plus, since the United States is the top producer of soy, you’re helping farmers across the nation. Who knew a candle could be a patriotic choice?
  • Unscented soy candles won’t interfere with your meal: When you burn paraffin candles, even unscented ones, you run the risk of releasing stinky chemicals that can affect the flavor and smell of your meals. Beeswax candles, on the other hand, can release a honey scent into the air. For some meals, that might be tolerable, but for others, you won’t want to risk overpowering the meal you worked so hard to prepare. (As a rule of thumb, always opt for unscented candles on the table, no matter what kind of wax they’re made of.) Additionally, soy is too soft to create taper candles, which is safer—taper candles can easily tip over and start fires.
  • Soy doesn’t produce as much heat: Candlelit rooms look romantic, but when they raise the temperature in the summer, your beautiful haven can turn into an unwanted sauna.

    We think the choice is clear, which is why we only offer soy candles at Soaps & Scents.

Find quality soy candles at Soaps & Scents!

Soaps & Scents offers high quality soy candles with incredible scents. Treat yourself and your loved ones to a gift you can trust. Stop by our store in El Cajon, CA to find out more about our selection and process. We look forward to meeting you soon and pairing you with your perfect scent!

Everyone wants their surroundings to smell good—whether in your home, office, or storefront, having a clean-smelling space is a big part of productivity. Smell is an underrated sense, but science has proven time and time again that certain scents can be inextricably linked to memories—meaning that if your home goods store smells like Grandma’s home-baked cookies, your customers will associate that sense of comfort and nostalgia with your business. It’s a subtle but effective detail that goes a long way in customer outreach.

Linen spray is a great way to freshen up your environment. You might not have time to deep clean, but you can easily spray fabrics for a cleaner, fresher room fast. Made of deionized water or a neutral alcohol, plus essential oils or other perfumes, they’re designed to be sprayed over fabrics, carpets and furniture to keep them smelling great between deep cleans or washing, without staining. You can also use them for aromatherapy purposes.

At Soaps & Scents, you can find the perfect linen sprays. Come test them out! Our line of Room Fresheners is made with PureFresh™ base, which is water soluble and completely alcohol free. You can use it just about anywhere without fear of damaging fabric, clothes or carpet. Here are some of our favorite ways to use linen sprays.

Fabric Furnishings and Carpet

Spritzing your soft fabric furnishings and carpets with linen spray is a great way to keep them fresh between cleanings. Even if you own your own carpet and upholstery cleaner, lugging it out and around your home or store is a pain! On the other hand, tracking in dirt and odor is just a fact of life.

With a quick spray around your home or business, you can help ensure that your space always smells as clean as if you had spent the day scrubbing.

Air Freshener

Company’s coming—or a big client is on the schedule—and you don’t have time to air out the room. What to do? Well, you can actually apply linen sprays right into the air as an air freshener. They’ll help neutralize unpleasant odors and fill the room with your selected fragrance. Pro tip: Pick the scent to complement the reason for company! Food smells are homey and welcoming; citrus scents are uplifting and cheerful. Fresh linen scents make everything smell like cozy clean laundry. Whatever your needs, there’s a spray for that.

Clothing Freshener

Linen sprays can also be used when your clothes aren’t dirty… but they could use a little boost. Maybe you went out to a concert, a club or a bonfire and your favorite jacket now has notes of tobacco or wood smoke—eliminate those smells and save your clothes with a quick blast of linen spray.

When you’re looking for linen sprays, be sure to stop by Soaps & Scents. Our handmade products are made by real people—not machines—in small batches to ensure the highest quality natural ingredients and attention to detail. Contact us today to check out our selection!

If you suffer from eczema or psoriasis, knowing the ingredients in your bar soap is essential to reducing irritation. While some ingredients irritate, others promote healing. One of these is colloidal oatmeal, which is available in our almond oatmeal bar. While oatmeal soaps and baths are not a cure, they can reduce your symptoms. Here is how colloidal oatmeal works for skin conditions.

What is colloidal oatmeal?

Colloidal oatmeal is oatmeal that has been ground into a fine powder, then suspended in liquid. This allows the oatmeal to be absorbed into the skin and soothe conditions such as bug bites, poison ivy or oak, eczema and sunburns. It is a natural anti-inflammatory, and allergies to oatmeal are very rare.

Oatmeal is also a sworn beauty treatment. It is gentle on facial skin and controls acne without excessive drying. Colloidal oatmeal is a primary ingredient in gentle baby products, as well as specialized products for skin conditions.

You can make your own colloidal oatmeal by placing one cup of oatmeal in a blender and grinding it into a fine powder. Test the powder in a glass of warm water. If it absorbs quickly into a milky liquid, the powder is fine enough. If not, keep grinding it until it achieves the correct consistency.

How do I use it?

The most common option for oatmeal treatments is a soak in your tub. You can buy oatmeal bath products or use the colloidal oatmeal you made in your blender.

This is how you prepare an oatmeal bath: Take your one cup of colloidal oatmeal and run it under lukewarm water in your bathtub. If you have a large tub, make another cup of it and run that under, too. As the tub fills, mix the oatmeal with your hand. The mixture should have a silky texture and appear milky. If it appears watered down, add more oatmeal.

It is important to avoid hot baths with this treatment. Depending on your condition, you could cause further inflammation from the heat of the water. Keep the water close to a lukewarm or cooler temperature, like that of an unheated pool on a summer day. If you are treating sunburn, you will likely want it cooler, but make the water hot enough to absorb the oatmeal.

Soak for about 10 minutes to relieve itching or inflammation. If you soak longer than that, you risk drying out your skin, which defeats the purpose of the soak in the first place. Once finished, you may feel like your skin is encased in a film. If this is bothersome, rinse off in a lukewarm shower, and once done, pat yourself dry with a towel. Do not rub, as that can cause further irritation.

If you are not a bath person, there are other options available. There are oatmeal-based shower gels, as well as lotions that work well with prescription eczema treatments. You also have the option of bar soaps, which you can buy from specialized retailers like Soaps & Scents.

Soaps & Scents offers gentle bar soaps containing oatmeal for sensitive skin. Learn more by paying a visit to our storefront in El Cajon, CA. We’d love to help you find the ideal product!