Clean Candles, Cleaner Air: A Practical Guide To Healthier Soy Candles

How Do Soy Candles Support A Healthier Home Environment?

The soft glow of a candle shouldn’t come with a scratchy throat. We dig into the surprising truth behind wax choices, wick design, and fragrance load so your cozy ritual supports cleaner air instead of filling your space with soot and irritants. Trang Nguyen, maker behind CVA Products, compares paraffin, soy, beeswax, and coconut, unpacking why a label that says “soy blend” doesn’t always mean what you think and how allergies and asthma can flare when the wrong materials meet an overloaded scent.

We walk through practical, shopper-ready tips: how to tell if a candle is truly 100 percent soy, why beeswax burns long and clean, and when coconut works for performance but not for households with coconut sensitivities. You’ll hear why soot isn’t just a wax problem but also a wick problem, how cotton and engineered wood wicks behave differently, and the simple burn habits that set memory, prevent tunneling, and keep smoke to a minimum. Along the way we demystify fragrance: supplier-recommended percentages for soy (often 10 to 12 percent), the risks of cranking up the load to chase a stronger scent, and an easy market test for spotting candles that are too overpowering before you even pick up a jar.

If you care about air quality, have kids or teens with sensitivities, or just want a calm home without chemical fog, this guide arms you with questions to ask and labels to decode. Learn to choose materials that fit your values, avoid triggers that sneak up over time, and make every burn session slower, cleaner, and more enjoyable. Subscribe for more clean living tips, share this episode with a friend who loves candles, and leave a review to tell us your best clean-burn trick.

To learn more about CVA Products visit:
https://www.CVAProducts.com
CVA Products
121 Olive Street
Keller, TX 76248
817-915-1347

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Welcome to the TBA Products Podcast, where Texas
Get finally gets a gentle careof the Dicking Force.
Hosted by Cry Wynn, founder ofTVA Products in Keller, Texas, a
handmade skincare brand bornfrom love, necessity, and
delicious food.
Whether you're a busy mom, awell-mithed family, or someone

(00:27):
tired of playing ingredientroulette, this podcast is for
you.
From almond goat milk soap toballs that tackle everything
from diaper rash to dad's dryelbow.
Our products are clean, kind,and kid approved.
Whether it's toddlers, teens, oryour own grown-up skin drama,
we've got you covered.

SPEAKER_01 (00:52):
Yes, they smell amazing, but soy candles do more
than set the mood.
Let's explore how theycontribute to cleaner air and
calmer spaces.
Welcome back, everyone.
I am Millie M, co-host andproducer back in the studio with
Trang Wen, founder of C VAProducts.
How's it going?
Grey, how are you?
I am doing well.
Let's talk about something cozyand clean.

(01:13):
How do soy candles support ahealthier home environment?

SPEAKER_02 (01:16):
There are candles you can make with different
types of wax.
Okay.
The one that you can find likein a retail store, regular
retail store, they usually callpetroleum um wax.
That's basically it's petroleumand it's not uh healthy.
Um, and then we have candle thatmade with soy.

(01:38):
And then we have candle that canmake with bee wax.
And then we have candle can makewith coconut wax, and then you
can do a uh a blend soy blend.
So when I do soy blend, maybe asoy with either petroleum or soy
blend with coconut.
Um, you have to ask because whenon the label, it would say soy

(02:02):
blend, and you just don't knowwhat they blending.
So only the maker will tell youwhat they blend in.
Or okay, so for me, I only dosoy because it's vegan, and most
of my customers are allergic tococonut, so I try not to use
coconut, so I can't use soyblend, even though coconut is
good.
The best candle is bee wax, butbee wax is very natural, uh, but

(02:26):
it's very expensive because beeis super expensive and is uh is
burned very long time too.
Um and it's very very clean.
When you burn them, you don'tsee any suiting like a flex
smoke.
If you know if you burn regularcandle, I burned when I was
young, I burned a lot of uhbody.
So I burn a lot of the candle,and when I burn them, I noticed

(02:47):
like there's a flex, likesuiting.
Um, when you burn them, you cansee a lot of flaxing, and I
don't even know what they are.
So they cause soot.
And when you burn them, you seethe flaxene, they're really bad
for you because you inhale theminto your lung, and this can
cause a lot of things like umlung cancer down the road,
especially uh that and also thewax itself is petroleum, it's

(03:09):
even worse.
And then on top of that, is ifit's like ferment oil, it can
also trigger your allergy andyour asthma.
So, like for instance, right nowmy daughter and I have my
daughter have asthma, but wealso have allergy.
So when we burn a regularcandle, we either sneeze or we
cough constantly.
And when it happens, I know it'sthe sounds in the candle that

(03:33):
triggers, I have to stop inorder to pick up, you know,
breathing.
With soy, when you burn soy, soyis burned very slow.
Uh, it doesn't burn fast becauseit likes to burn in the cool
temperatures.
And so I'd say a four-ounce jar,really tiny jar, you can burn
about 21 hours.
And in order for the sun to comeout correctly, you have to burn

(03:57):
at least three to four hours.
Unlike the regular candle, I'mtalking about a regular that you
want to store, you burn it, thesun comes out right away.
Soy is uh because it's madefrom, you know, it's very vegan,
and so it takes time for it toburn for the sun to come out,
and then um every time when youburn like with a small one, the
wick is very small.

(04:18):
And so you don't normally thesafety guard you have to trim
the wig, but because if thecandle is so small, they can
fall out.
You should, I wouldn't recommendyou trim them that much because
when you trim them, there's notmuch wick left to burn.
And also um the wax itself isnot the major the causing the
suit, uh the suit when you burnthem.

(04:39):
It's the wick also, the wig.
So there are different types ofwick in the markets.
The cleanest one um most peopleusing it, you can do um is
either cotton wick or bamboostick, like the one that they
stick it down.
Um, I think that's mostcandlemakers nowadays using
that.
I am not uh part of that.
Um I haven't changed with thatone yet.

(05:01):
Because I I mean the the time umum the rumors like okay when you
burn the um the wooden stick,you can hear the attacking
attacking in the sounds.
I I I don't care that much, butI like it.
Yeah.
Um but it's um it had to becompatible though.
So not every wax will becompatible with the the wig

(05:25):
itself.
So as a candle maker, sometimesyou have to test it and test it
and get the cable wrong too.
Um so I always stick with it onwig, which is I think it's super
clean and flopsy, and you see itand come from me and it's wrong
not really because like thelight is scent.
So when you grow a candle, whenyou buy a candle, um you don't

(05:48):
want to buy people with strongscents, but my tip is when you
buy a candle, try not to get astrong, too much strong scent to
empower trend because when youwhen you smell a sniffer candle
when the can the smell is toostrong, this two thing, well
there's at least one thing Iknow is going wrong is the

(06:10):
amount of um essential, like theamount of scent that they put
inside when they mix it with thecandle, it could be too much.
And the guideline is that whenyou're making uh the candle, um
there are certain percentagesthat you're supposed to be
mixing in the candle based onthe amount.

(06:30):
So let's say for instance, um,if you're doing a four-ounce uh
candle, you can do the maximumwith soy.
Every wax is a little bitdifferent.
For soy you can do up to 10 or12 percent.
The manufacturers always providethe information to you.
So if you're using, some peoplewere using because of like shots

(06:51):
and they could use them 20% or30% to make the sand a bit
stronger when you burn the housethat smell good.
But they don't know the downsideof it, the the bad side of it is
that when you put it over theamount that was recommended by
the supplier, it can turn intoum you inhale too much chemical
inside your body.

unknown (07:12):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (07:12):
Those fragrances can be triggering as well.

SPEAKER_02 (07:16):
Side term is okay in the long term, you will notice
like your allergies start todevelop and you'll be sneezing
something somehow along theline, but it's not you don't see
it right away, but it takes acouple years because some of my
customers did come back and toldme that they burn candles for
like a really long time in orderto see the side effects really
kick into them.

SPEAKER_01 (07:36):
That definitely makes sense.
So if a person is looking for acleaner candle, they start by
looking for something soy, makesure they know what the soy
blend is, um know what the wickis made out of, and make sure
that it's not too overlyfragrant.
Would you say those are correctthat you would give to someone?

SPEAKER_02 (07:56):
Yes, so um the label itself is sometimes not really
clear enough.
Um when I go and buy a candle oreven look around.
Um, I usually see them they saysoy, but I'm gonna ask, is it
really 100% soy or is it soyblend?
And then the next thing I wouldask is they say, okay, uh
fragment with fragrance scents.

(08:18):
So I always ask because somepeople do call essential oil
fragrance, but you don't knowunless you've asked.
So I don't buy fragrant oil.
Although fragrant oil, they somewould be safe and some would be
unsafe.
It depends on where they gottheir supply from.

(08:38):
Um, but sometimes they don'tknow that and it's kind of like
too much to leave some somemakers, they probably know if
you ask them too many questions,they're not all like that.
So um I always ask them, okay,when you say fragment, are you
using me like is it reallyfragment oil or is that
essential oil?
Or are you blending?
You blend them, you can callfragment oil because it's um

(09:00):
it's a blend, it's not pureeither side.
And then I also started askingquestions, like, okay, how much
are you using in this?
But if normally I can tell if anew person they won't be able to
know if I walk by a candle boothand I can smell the candle
without stuffing inside thebooth.
Right.
You know that it's overlyfragrant.

(09:21):
And it's like, okay, I don'tlike when it's too overpowered
because then it's gonna get me,I couldn't be breathing.
So that's me having an issue.
But that's also something youcan put in the back of your
mind, you walk by, and youyou're electric if you don't get
allergy and you can smell itoutside of your booth, and that
candle is too overpowering, youmight want to get something a

(09:41):
little bit lighter, um, thatit'll be easier for you.

SPEAKER_01 (09:46):
Great advice.
Thank you so much.
Or they can just make sure thatthey call you or go onto your
website and get your candles,which we know um are made with
all the best ingredients.
That was very enlightening, andwe'll see you next time for more
clean living tips.
I see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 (10:05):
Thanks for tuning in to the TVA Products Podcast,
where we believe further daysstart with gentler skin.
Ready to simplify your family'sskincare routine?
Visit TVAproducts.com.
Text us at 817-915-1247 or stopfive at 121 hours together,

(10:28):
Texas.