A lab ran scented candles through gas chromatography and counted about 60 volatile organic compounds. The same test on unscented candles turned up roughly 20. Almost all of that gap comes from the fragrance oil, and the wax underneath barely moves the number.
What customers say on Google
View on Google
So if you came here looking for a scary ingredient hiding in P.F. Candle Co. Teakwood & Tobacco, the label is going to disappoint you. It is a soy wax candle from a brand that states its fragrance oils are phthalate-free, and both of those things are worth something. The part that decides how your head feels at eleven at night sits somewhere else, which is a question I think about constantly, since we pour pure beeswax candles by hand in New York City and get asked some version of it every week.
What a lab actually finds when it tests a scented candle
A volatile organic compound is any carbon-based chemical that evaporates at room temperature. Fragrance oil is built almost entirely out of them. That is the whole point of it. A molecule that will not evaporate cannot reach your nose.
Which means a scented candle is already releasing compounds into the room before you ever light it. Peer-reviewed research on candle emissions has measured volatile organic compounds coming off scented candles both unlit and lit. Heat speeds the process up. It does not start it.
Teakwood and tobacco style scents lean on heavy base molecules. Woody, resinous, sweet, slightly smoky. Those molecules are large and slow to lift, so perfumers usually have to load more oil into the wax to make the scent carry across a room. More oil in the wax means more compounds in your air.
If woody candles give you a dull ache behind the eyes while a light citrus one never does, that pattern is real and it has a physical basis. Research has also found that scented candle odors can trigger or worsen symptoms in people with asthma, allergies, or fragrance sensitivity. Your reaction is information, not fussiness.
The word on the label that people trust the most
Phthalates are plasticizers. In fragrance, they are used to hold scent molecules together and make a smell last longer on skin or in a room. They are the compound class that made people start reading candle labels in the first place, and phthalate-free is a genuine improvement over a blend that contains them.
P.F. Candle Co. states its fragrance oils are phthalate-free. Take that at face value. It clears one of the four real risk factors in a candle, and plenty of shelf brands cannot say the same.
What the phrase does not cover is everything else inside the word "fragrance." A single fragrance oil can hold dozens of separate aroma chemicals, and no rule requires a candle maker to list them. Phthalate-free tells you what was left out. It says nothing about how much of the rest went in, and load is the variable that changes what a room feels like after four hours.
It also says nothing about the wax. And the wax is doing two jobs at once.
The wax is fuel and it is also the thing that smokes
Job one is fuel. The wick pulls melted wax up, the flame burns it, and the heat carries the fragrance out. Job two is what the flame leaves behind when combustion runs dirty.
Paraffin is worth walking through slowly, because most people have never been told where it comes from. Crude oil goes into a refinery and gets split by weight. The light fractions become fuel. Down in the heavy residue there is a waxy sludge, and that sludge gets de-oiled, bleached, and deodorized until it comes out as a hard white block. That block is candle wax. Paraffin is a leftover from petroleum refining, sold as a product because someone found a use for it. A medical center review of candle emissions covers what burning it can release, including benzene and toluene.
Soy is a real step up from that. It is a vegetable wax, it burns at a lower temperature, and testing has shown it produces less soot than paraffin. The catch is the word "blend." A candle can say soy on the front and still be part paraffin, because there is no legal minimum for the claim. Single-ingredient soy is a specific promise, and it is one P.F. Candle Co. makes.
Beeswax sits at the other end. Bees make it, beekeepers harvest it as a byproduct of honey production, and it gets filtered rather than chemically processed. It has the highest melting point of any candle wax, so it burns slower and gives you more hours from the same jar. Our 80-hour size is possible because of that melting point, not because of anything added to the wax.
| Wax | Where it comes from | Processing | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paraffin | Heavy residue from petroleum refining | De-oiled, bleached, deodorized | Sootiest of the three, cheapest to produce |
| Soy | Soybean oil, hydrogenated into a solid | Chemically hardened, often sold as a blend | Cleaner than paraffin, blend content is rarely disclosed |
| Beeswax (MBur) | Byproduct of honey production | Filtered only, single ingredient | Highest melting point, up to 80 hours of burn time per candle |
Say the candle you burn is the one on the shelf across from the couch, lit at seven, still going when you turn the lamp off. That is four hours of the same fragrance load in one room, most nights of the week. If you want the woody, warm end of the spectrum without a petroleum wax under it, our Sunday Reset beeswax candle lands close. Notes: Eucalyptus, Clove, Cedar, Patchouli, Vanilla. It opens cold and sharp, then settles into dry cedar and clove with vanilla holding the bottom.
So where do the chemicals in a Teakwood & Tobacco candle actually come from?
Here is the answer the label cannot give you. What reaches your lungs is not set by any single ingredient. It is set by total load in your room, and that has four inputs:
- How much fragrance oil is packed into the wax
- How many hours a week the candle burns
- How big the room is
- How fast the air in that room turns over
Researchers have shifted their attention toward exactly this. Limited ventilation lets compounds accumulate, and a small closed room concentrates whatever the candle gives off. The same candle in a drafty open kitchen and in a sealed studio apartment produces two completely different exposures.
That is why the obvious answer, switch to soy, so often fails to fix anything. Wax type matters for soot. It barely touches fragrance load. A heavily scented soy candle burning four hours a night in a small bedroom can leave you feeling worse than a lightly scented candle of any wax burning two hours in a living room with a cracked window.
It is also worth saying plainly: a 2014 review concluded that under normal conditions of use, scented candles do not pose known health risks to the average consumer. If candles have never bothered you, nothing here says they should start. This post is for the person who already noticed a pattern and wants to know which lever to pull.
The four things worth checking, ranked from the one you already checked to the one nobody checks
1. Phthalates in the fragrance. This is the one everybody looks for now, and plenty of brands have already removed them. P.F. Candle Co. clears it. We use only non-toxic, phthalate-free fragrance oils.
2. Chemical dyes. Colored wax means dye in the melt pool, and dye burns along with everything else. Undyed wax removes a whole category of combustion products for zero loss in scent. Our wax is left the color beeswax already is.
3. Metal-core wicks. Rare now, and mostly gone from reputable brands, but worth a glance at the wick before you light an old candle from the back of a cupboard.
4. Fragrance load and burn hours. Nobody checks this one, and it is the one that decides how the room feels. There is no number on any label for it. You measure it by how the room smells after two hours and how your head feels after four.
That fourth item is where a wooden wick earns its place. It burns with a wider, lower flame than a tight cotton wick, so the melt pool spreads evenly and the scent lifts at a lower temperature. You get throw without cranking the oil percentage.
What the switch feels like in a real apartment
"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."
Jason H.
Jason's point is the useful one. He did not stop liking the other candles. He noticed his body responding differently to a different burn, in the same rooms, doing the same things.
If teakwood and tobacco is your register because you want green and woody rather than sweet and warm, our Touch Grass beeswax candle is the closer match. Notes: Fig, Black Currant, Galbanum, Coconut, Davana, Cedarwood, Amber, Orris, Tonka Bean. Cedarwood, amber, and tonka bean sit underneath it, which is the same territory a tobacco accord occupies, with a sharp green opening on top.
A checklist you can run in thirty seconds
- Single-ingredient wax, stated by name, with no "blend" hedge
- Phthalate-free fragrance, stated on the product page
- No added dye
- Cotton or wooden wick with no metal core
- A stated burn time, so you can work out what an hour actually costs you
Every MBur candle clears all five. 100% beeswax, single ingredient. Phthalate-free fragrance oils. No chemical dyes. Wooden wicks. Burn times printed for every size, from the 40-hour at $32 up to the 80-hour at $65.
But mine is soy and the label says clean burning
"Clean burning" has no legal definition. Any candle can print it. Soy is a real improvement over paraffin on soot, and if your candle is single-ingredient soy from a brand that discloses its fragrance policy, you have already done better than most of the shelf. The remaining variable is how much you burn and where.
"But I have burned this candle for two years and nothing has ever happened." Then keep burning it. Sensitivity is individual, and there is no reason to fix something that is not broken. The people who need this article usually arrive already knowing something is off, and they are looking for the reason.
"But it is the only scent I like." That is fair, and it is why swapping wax without swapping scent family is the move. Woody and resinous scents exist in beeswax too. You are changing the fuel under the fragrance, not giving up the fragrance.
How to burn any candle so it bothers you less
Trim the wick to about an eighth of an inch before every light. A long wick makes a tall flame, a tall flame burns fuel faster than it can burn it cleanly, and that is where soot comes from.
Cap your burns at three to four hours. Past that the melt pool gets deep and hot and the whole candle starts throwing harder than you want in a closed room.
Crack a window or open a door to another room. Air exchange does more for how a room feels than any wax swap. In a bedroom under about a hundred square feet, cut your burn time in half.
If you have asthma, allergies, or any diagnosed respiratory condition, follow your doctor's guidance on scented products in your home. Nothing on this page replaces that advice.
Questions people actually ask
Is P.F. Candle Co. Teakwood & Tobacco toxic?
There is no evidence that it is toxic under normal use. It is a soy wax candle with phthalate-free fragrance oils, which clears two of the biggest concerns people have. Every burning candle emits volatile organic compounds regardless of wax, so if that scent bothers you specifically, the fix is usually less burn time, more ventilation, or a lower fragrance load. Comparing it against a single-ingredient beeswax candle is a fair way to test whether wax is your variable.
Does soy really burn cleaner than beeswax?
Both burn far cleaner than paraffin. Beeswax has the higher melting point, so it burns slower and gives you more hours from the same jar, which is why our Sunday Reset candle reaches 80 hours in the largest size. Soy is chemically hardened to become solid at room temperature. Beeswax arrives solid from the hive and only gets filtered.
Why do woody and smoky candles bother me more than citrus ones?
Woody base molecules are heavy and slow to lift, so those blends usually need a higher oil load to carry across a room. More oil means more compounds in your air over the same burn time. Something greener like Touch Grass gives you the cedarwood and amber depth with a lighter opening.
How long do beeswax candles actually burn?
Ours run 40 hours at $32 and 80 hours at $65. The 80-hour size works out to about 81 cents per hour of burn time. Portia Darby wrote that the candle "burned slowly and was exactly the amount of hours the company said it would burn."
Do candles release chemicals when they are not lit?
Scented candles do give off some volatile organic compounds unlit, because fragrance oil evaporates at room temperature. That is why an unlit candle still smells. The amounts are far smaller than when the candle is burning, and putting the lid on cuts it further.
What to do with this
The chemicals people search for in a Teakwood & Tobacco candle are mostly the ones already removed from it. What determines how a room feels is total fragrance load, burn hours, and air exchange, and the wax you choose changes how much soot rides along with all of it. Pull the levers you control.
If you want to get more out of whatever candle you already own, start with our guide to candle care, because wick length and burn time change soot output on day one at zero cost.
Then, if you want to test whether wax is your variable, start with the Sunday Reset candle in the 40-hour size at $32, because that is enough hours to run it on your usual nights, in your usual room, and know for certain. It gives you the cedar and clove warmth you were after in a woody candle, and it does it on single-ingredient beeswax with a wooden wick and no dye. Across 57 customer reviews, the line customers repeat most is about how the scent fills a room and how they feel afterward. The reason to do it now is simple: you only learn whether the candle was the cause by changing one thing and paying attention for a couple of weeks.
Shop the pure beeswax candle collection
Related reading
