Personally I don’t use candles, but if you do you might want to read this.
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They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
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Don’t use candles much myself, but I’ve never had any problems with the parafin type when I do. The usual emergency candles cost about $1. each. Bee’s wax in the rough costs about $10. a pound, and made into candles is considerably more. No contest for me. I’ll use the parafin. And, in the distant past when candles were all there were, most people could not afford bee’s wax then either. There was a serious reason why people went to bed with the chickens and got up at first light. 🙂
And bee’s wax has no magic properties r/t positive or negative ions either.
Heck yeah… if I wanted a really nice candle, I look for bee’s wax maybe. 🙂 But for an emergency, the parafin things will do just fine and last longer. After all the batteries are dead and the little propane bottles run out, actually. More than one way to skin a cat. LOL
Yeah, I’d be leery of burning a mass of palmitate, palmitoleate, oleate esters of long-chain aliphatic alcohols, triacontanyl palmitate, and cerotic acid… oh… wait. That’s beeswax. And laced with allergens (pollen), depending on how extensively it was processed.
y’know, I have to pile in here, also. Paraffin is a hydrocarbon. Not the ‘bottom of the oil barrel’. Its made from oil and wax, and is a byproduct of the crude oil refining process, although it can also be made from coal tar. The reason you get smoke from a paraffin candle is because of incomplete combustion. You can get that from a beeswax candle also.
To be honest, all other things being equal (including price), I’d rather burn beeswax. But its much more expensive. Paraffin works just fine.
There’s another choice: soy wax. Kind of midway in price between beeswax and parafin unless you find them on sale, and regular price is getting cheaper. But I don’t think they burn as long as the emergency candles or provide as much light. I haven’t noticed much smoke from soy candles. I’d be much more concerned about candle wicks, which unless the label says they are cotton are often contaminated with lead, which is in the smoke from the candle. I think candles of all kinds burn longer and cleaner if they are kept cold or frozen until needed.
All crude oil isn’t the same. In fact some crude is asphalt based and some is parafin based. The linked story claimed they were the same thing. Is parafin dangerous or bad for you? Well there is zero evidence of it. This story seems to be just another twist of the classic “natural” is good and anything man made or worse made from fossil based fuel is bad. This must be a mental syndrome with a name. Fear of everything or fear of anything we deem to not be natural or easily lead around by the nose, or falls for anything with the right keywords in it. Please, take two willow twigs and call me in the morning.