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Are Brooklyn Candle Studio Italian Bergamot Candles Safe? What Is Actually in Them, and What to Burn If You React

September 09, 2026 by MBur Candle Co.13 min read

You want to know what is actually inside Brooklyn Candle Studio's Italian Bergamot candle, and whether burning it in a room with the windows shut is doing something to your air. The short answer: a soy wax candle with a cotton wick sits well ahead of a cheap paraffin candle, and Brooklyn Candle Studio states publicly that its fragrance is phthalate-free and its wax is petroleum-free. On the two things most people search for, wax and wick, that brand is not the problem.

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The part no candle label in the United States has to answer is what sits inside the fragrance blend itself. "Fragrance" is one word standing in for anywhere from a handful to dozens of separate compounds, and federal labeling rules let it stay that way. That gap is the reason we build every one of our pure beeswax candles from a single-ingredient wax with phthalate-free fragrance, so there is less hidden behind that one word.

Are Brooklyn Candle Studio Italian Bergamot Candles Safe? What Is Actually in Them, and What to Burn If You React

Three things decide whether a candle is safe, and only one of them is hidden

A candle is a wax, a wick, and a scent. Every real safety question comes back to one of those three, and two of them you can check with your own eyes.

The wax decides what burns and what floats off into the room. The wick decides how cleanly that happens. The fragrance decides what rides along with the smoke. Brands disclose the first two freely because they are easy wins. The third one stays vague across most of the industry, which is exactly why you ended up searching.

So work through them in order. Start with the one that sets the floor for everything else.

The wax sets the floor, and soy clears it

Paraffin starts as crude oil. Refineries separate crude into fuels and lubricants, and what is left behind in that process gets bleached and deodorized into candle wax. That is the entire origin story. Paraffin is a leftover from petroleum refining, and no amount of processing changes where it came from.

When paraffin burns it releases volatile organic compounds, including benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde. That is not a fringe claim and it is worth taking seriously. It also throws visible soot, the grey film that turns up on the inside of the jar and, over months, on the wall above where the candle sits.

Soy wax comes from soybean oil that has been hydrogenated until it holds a solid shape at room temperature. It burns cooler than paraffin and produces far less soot. Research has found that vegetable-based waxes soot substantially less than petroleum wax, which is the main reason soy took over the independent candle market in the first place. Brooklyn Candle Studio pours soy, and on wax alone that puts them in the clean half of the shelf.

Beeswax is the older answer. Bees make it in the hive, beekeepers collect it as a byproduct of honey harvesting, and it goes into a candle without chemical processing. It has the highest melting point of any candle wax, which is why it burns the longest, and it needs no hydrogenation or blending to hold its shape. People were burning it around 5,000 BCE.

One caution about soy that applies across the category and not to any single brand: labels can say "soy" while the wax is a blend that includes paraffin. Look for wording that commits to a single wax, not just a wax that gets named first.

The word doing the most work on the label

Now the part that actually brought you here.

"Fragrance" on an ingredient list is a legal shortcut. A company can list one word and keep the underlying formula private as trade secret. Inside that word you can find phthalates, which are added to make scent cling and last longer, along with the carrier oils and aroma chemicals that build the scent.

Phthalates are the compound family most people are trying to avoid when they type a question like yours into a search bar. That concern is legitimate and worth acting on. Brooklyn Candle Studio states its fragrance is phthalate-free, which closes off the largest single worry. That statement is worth something, and most mass-market brands will not make it.

What a phthalate-free claim does not tell you is everything else in the blend. It is a statement about one ingredient family, not a full ingredient list. That is true of nearly every candle sold in the United States, ours included, which is why the honest move is to ask brands what they will commit to in writing rather than assuming silence means safety.

Here is the practical version. A candle that names its wax as a single ingredient, states its fragrance is phthalate-free, and uses a wick you can see is cotton or wood has answered three questions out of three. That is as much certainty as this category currently offers.

What bergamot actually does when you burn it

Bergamot is a small citrus fruit grown along one coastline in southern Italy. Too tart to eat, so growers press the rind for its oil. A few drops in black tea makes Earl Grey, and you catch it from across the kitchen before you take a sip.

Cold-pressed bergamot oil carries furocoumarins, natural compounds that can make skin more sensitive to sunlight. If you search "is bergamot safe," most of what surfaces is about this. Read closely and nearly all of it concerns oil applied directly to skin followed by sun exposure. Burning a candle is airborne exposure with essentially no skin contact, so the phototoxicity question does not transfer over from the topical research. Steam-distilled citrus oils do not carry furocoumarins at all.

There is a separate, more everyday issue with citrus in candles. Citrus essential oils are delicate and they change when heat hits them. Burn a candle built heavily on raw citrus oil and the top notes can go flat or turn faintly acrid an hour in. Perfumers work around this by building citrus into a structure that holds up to a flame instead of relying on the raw oil alone.

That is the whole reason a bergamot candle can smell wonderful cold and disappointing hot.

If you want bergamot that survives the burn

Think about the last time you lit a citrus candle, walked out of the room, came back twenty minutes later and could barely find the scent. The wax was still melting. The wick was fine. The top notes had simply cooked off.

That is the problem our Just to Clarify beeswax candle was built around. Notes: Bergamot, Lemon, Orange, Green Tea, Black Tea, Sandalwood. The citrus opens it, the two teas hold the middle, and sandalwood anchors the base so the scent still reads bergamot at hour three instead of hour one. It runs on a single-ingredient beeswax wax, a wooden wick, phthalate-free fragrance, and no chemical dyes, and it is handmade in New York City. The 40-hour size is $32 and the 80-hour size is $65.

Beeswax also burns longer than any other candle wax because it has the highest melting point, so the wax leaves the jar slower. At $65 for 80 hours, that works out to under a dollar per hour of burn time.

How the three waxes compare

	Paraffin	Soy	MBur beeswax
What the wax is	Byproduct of petroleum refining	Hydrogenated soybean oil	Beeswax, byproduct of honey production
Processing	Bleached and deodorized	Hydrogenated to solidify	No chemical processing
Soot	Visible soot on jar and walls	Much less than paraffin	Clean burn, no paraffin soot
Blending risk	Often the base of a blend	Sometimes blended with paraffin	Single-ingredient wax, never blended
Wick	Cotton, occasionally metal-core on imports	Usually cotton	Wooden wick
Fragrance	Often undisclosed, may contain phthalates	Varies by brand	Phthalate-free, no chemical dyes
Burn time	Varies	Varies	Up to 80 hours, $65

The risk factors are ingredients, not candles

It is easy to read a page like this and conclude that candles are the problem. They are not. Four specific ingredients are.

Toxic fragrance is the first, meaning fragrance blends carrying phthalates or parabens. Metal-core wicks are the second. Lead wicks were banned in the United States in 2003, and cheap imports are the place they still occasionally surface. Paraffin soot is the third. Chemical dyes are the fourth, added purely to make the wax a color and combusted along with everything else.

Strip those four out and what remains is wax, a wick, and scent. Brooklyn Candle Studio has removed at least two of the four by its own account, and that is a real improvement over the average candle aisle.

If scent triggers a diagnosed condition for you, migraines, asthma, or anything else, follow your doctor's guidance first. No candle treats or prevents any medical condition, and we will not suggest otherwise.

What customers notice after they switch

Nicole D. came to us specifically because of how she reacts to strong scents:

"Absolutely loved the Wine Down candle! The scent is so light and clean not overpowering at all, which is exactly what I look for. A lot of other candles tend to give me headaches, but this one was a total game-changer. I was able to enjoy the calming aroma without any discomfort. It made my space feel cozy and refreshed at the same time. I'll definitely be purchasing it again. Highly recommend if you're sensitive to strong scents but still want something that smells amazing!"

Jason H. put it in terms of the room rather than the candle:

"I absolutely love these candles! I instantly notice the difference in the air quality, in comparison to the Bath & Body scented candles. I love Bath & Body's candles but I acknowledge that it caused a slight headache and other minor respiratory discomfort. Awesome products. Totally addicted."

If you want something quieter than citrus for a bedroom, our Do Not Disturb beeswax candle leads with bergamot and pear instead of full brightness, and it runs on the same single-ingredient beeswax and wooden wick. The 40-hour size is $32.

But my candle already says clean and non-toxic

Neither of those words is regulated in the candle category. Any brand can print them. That does not make the brands using them dishonest, and plenty of them are telling the truth, but the words themselves carry no legal weight. Judge the specifics underneath instead: the named wax, the named wick, and a written phthalate-free statement.

But I have burned it for years and felt nothing

Then you may not need to change anything. Sensitivity to fragrance varies enormously between people, and plenty of readers burn paraffin their whole lives without noticing a thing. This post is for the person who did notice, and who wants to know which part to remove.

Burn any candle better, starting tonight

These four habits matter more than most people expect, whatever brand sits on your shelf.

Trim the wick to about a quarter inch before every burn. An untrimmed wick mushrooms, the flame grows past its intended size, and soot follows.

Let the first burn reach the edge of the vessel. A rough guide is one hour per inch of candle diameter, so a two-inch candle needs about two hours. If the first melt pool stops short of the edge, the candle will tunnel on every burn after that.

Stop at four hours, whatever the size. Past that the glass gets very hot, the flame climbs, and the fragrance oils start to degrade from the heat.

Crack a window or leave the door open. Every burning candle releases volatile organic compounds, including unscented ones, and moving air is the simplest fix there is.

Frequently asked questions

Is bergamot safe to burn in a candle?

Yes, for normal candle use. The furocoumarin concern people find online relates to bergamot oil applied to skin followed by sun exposure, which is a different exposure route from burning a candle across the room. The more realistic issue is that raw citrus oil can lose its edge under heat, which is why Just to Clarify pairs its bergamot with green tea, black tea and sandalwood to hold the scent through a long burn.

Does phthalate-free mean the whole candle is non-toxic?

It means one ingredient family has been removed, which is meaningful and worth looking for. It does not describe the rest of the fragrance blend, the wax, or the dyes. Check all four before you decide, and if you want the shortest ingredient list available, every candle in our beeswax candle collection uses a single-ingredient wax, a wooden wick, phthalate-free fragrance and no chemical dyes.

Do soy candles really soot less than paraffin?

Yes. Vegetable-based waxes burn cooler and cleaner than petroleum wax, and the difference shows up as less black film on the inside of the jar. Beeswax burns clean for the same reason, with the added benefit of the highest melting point of any candle wax, which is how the 80-hour Do Not Disturb candle reaches 80 hours at $65.

How do I know if a wick has a metal core?

Pinch the unlit wick between two fingers and bend it. Cotton flops. A metal-core wick stands up on its own or feels stiff. Wooden wicks are visible at a glance, and every candle we make uses one.

Can a candle cause headaches?

Some people report headaches around heavily fragranced candles, and several of our customers have said switching helped them. We cannot tell you a candle will prevent a headache, and if headaches are a recurring problem for you, that is a conversation for your doctor.

What to do with all of this

Brooklyn Candle Studio's Italian Bergamot is a soy candle from a brand that publishes what it uses and states its fragrance is phthalate-free, which puts it ahead of most of what is on a supermarket shelf. The open question with almost any scented candle is what sits behind the word "fragrance," so choose based on how much a brand will commit to in writing.

If you want bergamot with the shortest ingredient list we can offer, start with the 40-hour Just to Clarify at $32, because it lets you test how your own room and your own nose respond before you commit to the 80-hour size. It smells like a morning table with two pots of tea on it, and it runs on beeswax, a wooden wick, phthalate-free fragrance and no dyes, so there are four ingredients to think about instead of forty.

Customers keep coming back to the same point. As Tiffany Gordon put it: "This scent has me in a chokehold. I burn it in my room and my living room and it fills my space SOOOOO nicely... Theres nothing I hate more than a candle that can't fill the room and baby this is NOT that."

One plain reason to act now: every evening you keep burning the candle you are unsure about is another evening spent guessing instead of knowing.

Before you buy anything, read The Ultimate Guide to Bee-autiful Candle Care so your first burn sets the melt pool correctly and the candle lasts its full rated hours.

Shop the MBur pure beeswax candle collection and start with the 40-hour size at $32.