How dangerous are "lead" candle wicks?

Some time back I'd read about recalls of candles containing lead in their wicks, and in response to that I looked at our household candles, removing from service any that had any sort of metal embedded in the wick. Today I found a few more in a closet and it got me to wondering if these are really all that dangerous. (Let's make the assumption for now that I'm not planning on EATING the candle wicks, only lighting them!)

My understanding is that candle manufacturers liked to place metal in the wicks to make them stand straighter and possibly last a bit longer as they wouldn't flop into the molten wax and get buried... the metal would stiffen the wick, keep it standing upright. Looks nicer too, I guess.

I asked something along these general lines a long while back with regard to soldering, and the various soldering gurus around CPF at the time made the point that lead would not vaporize at soldering temperatures, so there would be no risk of inhaling vaporized lead when soldering. (Touching the solder is another matter, and for that reason I make a point to wash hands after soldering.)

But if the lead won't vaporize when soldering, does it make sense that it also won't vaporize in the wick of a candle? Or will it? Do lead-embedded wicks present any danger in the ordinary burning of a household candle? I have small children and don't want to lead poison them, but also don't want to toss a bunch of candles in the trash if there's no inherent risk.

:thinking: :shrug:

A candle flame can get hotter than the vaporization point of Lead. I'd guess some Lead could get into the air, though I would think it would precipitate out almost immediately, barely traveling beyond the wick.

Geoff

According to this they are dangerous:

Studies and research had been conducted by the Health Research Group stating that when lead-wick candles were burned, they emitted toxic levels of the lead, which posed serious health risks, particularly to children exposed to the lead-wick emissions.

I'm guessing though you could probably safely burn them outdoors where the lead vapors would disperse very quickly. Or perhaps try and remove pull out the metal embedded in the wick with pliers. Ironically, the reason lead was probably chosen over steel or some other metal was the fact that candle flames are hot enough to vaporize it, so the metal insert would burn off along with the rest of the wick.

When I was a kid I used to play with soldiers cast from pure soft lead. God knows how much of it ended up in my mouth. I breathed the exhaust from cars inefficiently burning leaded gas. I played in areas painted with lead paint and I drank water from LEAD PIPES!

As an adult I'm constantly using lead for one thing or another, two things I frequently do are soldering, and casting/shooting my own lead bullets. I've even melted down my own lead acid batteries and turned them into bullets!

I've also had my lead blood levels checked more than once. The doctors say I have an unusually low lead content in my body - EVERYBODY has a little bit in their blood. I've also taken IQ tests that prove it never harmed my inteligence.

My point? I'm not afraid of trace amounts of lead in ANYTHING. If I had a chunk of lead right here I'd lick it...

I just label it "heavy metal" and be done with it like that.
these metals are not really "natural" for our environment, they have to be extracted form the earth painstakingly.
would a caveman be burning lead in thier cave or shelter to stay warm?
Did the early people use Aluminum pans for thier cooking?
Did caveman kids eat Dirt?
did any one of the peoples living without all of this stuff for thousands of years, , , live any longer?
Are the people of today exposed by so many things, actually smarter than the people of yesteryear that lived without them? hmm, that is infinatly debatable isnt it

Watch this thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xa4v-c2Ykw
(hey 600 views on youtube , when someone kicked in the gonads would get 4000 times as many views, what does that tell you

each time they deeply investigate basically anything "unnatural" they find all sorts of bad stuff that "We should Know" that is all, we should Know, the knowing is everything, how a person decides to react or OVERreact comes best after knowledge.

There isnt a thing natural about this world we live in, yet we live 2X as long as before when things were more natural.

Is the lead left in a pile after the burning?
why was there no mention of the fuel and the paraffin that also gets sent into the air ? i assume you have no catalytic converter on it?
where does the Smell of the candle come from? the nose doesnt smell what doesnt exist.

would a caveman use a candle to fix the air? heck and i bet they smelled many times worse than we do?
would a caveman worry about trying to bring the light into the dark, or just go to sleep when it got dark ?
Would a caveman have a Whole lot more to worry about than the lead in thier candle?

do i really believe that vaporising say Zinc which is capable of killing "other forms of life" would be vastly better? or that simple iron which large percentages of this planet is made up of would be soo totally different? That i would like to know. if they only research the FEAR thing of the week, what about last weeks fear?

There was a big fuss made here a number of years ago when lots of lead candle wicks were found in shipments from places like China. They got banned, if they hadn't been already.

VidPro said:

I just label it "heavy metal" and be done with it like that.
these metals are not really "natural" for our environment, they have to be extracted form the earth painstakingly.
would a caveman be burning lead in thier cave or shelter to stay warm?
Did the early people use Aluminum pans for thier cooking?
Did caveman kids eat Dirt?
did any one of the peoples living without all of this stuff for thousands of years, , , live any longer?
Are the people of today exposed by so many things, actually smarter than the people of yesteryear that lived without them? hmm, that is infinatly debatable isnt it

Watch this thing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xa4v-c2Ykw
...

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What point are you trying to advance?

BatteryCharger said:

My point? I'm not afraid of trace amounts of lead in ANYTHING. If I had a chunk of lead right here I'd lick it...

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that reminds me of a safety/health movie I saw when I was an avionics technician in the Marine Corps (circa 1980 or so). It was about an electronics tech who was having some sort of nervous system problem. The tech mentioned that he licked the tip of the solder before each solder joint (I have no idea why). The doctor told the guy to quit licking the solder, and everything was fine.

Even 30 years ago, people knew that you shouldn't be ingesting lead. Handling lead doesn't seem to be an issue, though. Breathing lead fumes or eating paint chips with lead in them are another matter entirely.... The risk is greatest for young kids whose nervous systems are developing, or for those who work with the stuff on a daily basis.

If you burn candles every day, I'd avoid those with leaded wicks. If this only happens once or twice a year, the risk is much much smaller.

regards,
Steve K.

BatteryCharger said:

When I was a kid I used to play with soldiers cast from pure soft lead. God knows how much of it ended up in my mouth. I breathed the exhaust from cars inefficiently burning leaded gas. I played in areas painted with lead paint and I drank water from LEAD PIPES!

As an adult I'm constantly using lead for one thing or another, two things I frequently do are soldering, and casting/shooting my own lead bullets. I've even melted down my own lead acid batteries and turned them into bullets!

I've also had my lead blood levels checked more than once. The doctors say I have an unusually low lead content in my body - EVERYBODY has a little bit in their blood. I've also taken IQ tests that prove it never harmed my inteligence.

My point? I'm not afraid of trace amounts of lead in ANYTHING. If I had a chunk of lead right here I'd lick it...

Click to expand...

I used to play with Mercury, now they cordon off a block and send in people with space suits if a thermometer breaks

leeholaaho said:

I used to play with Mercury

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Are you now mad as a hatter? :laughing: I always remember a chem teacher describing how at one time "hatters" were poisoned by mercury due to its use in the manufacture of felt.

Geoff

Flying Turtle said:

Are you now mad as a hatter? :laughing: I always remember a chem teacher describing how at one time "hatters" were poisoned by mercury due to its use in the manufacture of felt.

Geoff

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That's actually true, though the practice of hand-rubbing mercury into hats to shape them was largely left in the mid-1800s.

The character in Alice In Wonderland was based on one of those fine gentlemen. :tinfoil:

Steve K said:

The tech mentioned that he licked the tip of the solder before each solder joint (I have no idea why). The doctor told the guy to quit licking the solder, and everything was fine.

Even 30 years ago, people knew that you shouldn't be ingesting lead.

Click to expand...

:duh2:

If the candles are of recent manufacture, the wicks are probably stiffened with zinc, not lead.

If you have doubts, burn the candles outside or use them as fireplace candles, where all the fumes will be drawn up the chimney. Maybe melt down the wax and make new candles, or give them to a friend who does so. The melting temperature of wax doesn't come anywhere near the melting point of lead or zinc, so you'd be safe.

I once got some of those candles, and the whole idea is pretty messed up.

The metal (which i guess was lead) was completely evaporated by the fire of the candle. There was nothing left after burning it down.
And while heavy metals are not as dangerous as often claimed, they are not healty. Lead, in fact, is known to make people stupid ( in the fetal alcohol syndrom kind of way).

And evaporated stuff is usually the nastiest, as it offers a lot of reactive surface and can easily get into the body.

Diesel_Bomber said:

If the candles are of recent manufacture, the wicks are probably stiffened with zinc, not lead.

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That's great...zinc fumes aren't poisonous at all. :shakehead

(for those that don't know look up zinc fume poisoning)

BatteryCharger said:

That's great...zinc fumes aren't poisonous at all. :shakehead

(for those that don't know look up zinc fume poisoning)

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Never claimed it wasn't. Go weld on galvanized steel and tell me that vaporized zinc is harmless.

It's just less harmful than lead.

lead is surprisingly unreactive...almost like mercury, ingestion will almost always end up in the toilet...but like Mercury its vapors is whats really dangerous as it permeates into tissue membranes on contact.

Licking lead won't do much...not without a huge dose or ingesting powdered lead or something that has sufficient surface area and will last a long time in direct contact in your system. :thinking:

Diesel_Bomber said:

It's just less harmful than lead.

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That's debateable. It's more "politically correct" than lead. People don't scream bloody murder when you mention zinc, like they do with lead. Poison is poison...

BatteryCharger said:

That's debateable. It's more "politically correct" than lead. People don't scream bloody murder when you mention zinc, like they do with lead. Poison is poison...

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I don't understand your point of view. You outline your experience with lead exposure and state how you don't care about trace amounts of lead in anything, yet seem to be scared about a bit of zinc? Zinc is a safer metal. I take it as part of a vitamin supplement. Never seen lead in a multivitamin.

Out of curiousity about the idea of Zinc fume poisoning, the compound that is toxic is gaseous ZnO. If you didn't know ZnO has a boiling point of 2360 °C I doubt your household candles get anywhere near that unless you run carbon arc or acetylene candles.

So the Zinc would be completely safe in the candle.

Also leads boiling point is 1749 °C the amount of lead that would "evaporate" out of the candle when burned is very small.

YOu can always figure people that smoke cigarets manage to get all this kind of stuff in their body, and somehow a lot of smokers life as long as non smokers. There's other things I'd worry about far sooner, like toxic creatures.