HWN Suggests

Letter of Recommendation: Ear Candling

Ear candles are widely and emphatically denounced by doctors as quackery. When burned, the little tubes of waxed gauze are supposed to create a vacuum effect just outside your ear, with the pressure differential pulling wax out and up into the tube itself. Sounds scientific enough, but it’s basically impossible to find evidence that they actually work.

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 Do Ear Wax Candles Actually Work? Take a Break from Q-Tips and Try One

I break down exactly how to successfully complete this process without getting hurt (it includes always having someone else with you). By the way: do not perform this procedure every day.

 Ear candling not for timid or sane

The theory is the lit candle will create suction that will, well, suck out the earwax, but Woodson said these candles will never create enough suction to make any difference at all. What these candles will create, she explains, is a powder and hot wax that could potentially drip into your ear, damaging the ear canal and eardrum. "This can do incredible harm," she said.

Articles of Interest

Clearing Wax Buildup With a Candle in the Ear

Ear candling, also called coning, involves hollow candles made from a cylinder of fabric covered with wax. They are put in the ear canal and allowed to burn down in a process some practitioners claim creates a "negative pressure" that sucks wax, fungus and other impurities out of the ear and up through the candle. So wax and ashes don't drip on you, the candle is placed through a hole in a disposable pie tin or Styrofoam plate wrapped in aluminum foil.

Ear Candling: Helpful or Harmful?

Burning an ear candle with the tapered end inside someone’s ear as described above blows warm smoke into the ear which is indeed very relaxing and soothing for many. No wonder day spas have it on offer.

Ear Candling… A Triumph of Ignorance Over Science

A survey of 122 otolaryngologists identified 21 ear injuries resulting from ear candle use. Their conclusion was that ear candles have no benefit in the management of cerumen and may result in serious injury.

FDA: That Wax in Your Ear Shouldn't Be a Burning Candle

One of the only published human studies of ear candling tested the waxy substance removed using mass spectroscopy and found it all came from the candle, not the ear, says study author otolaryngologist Daniel R. Seely.

Waxing sceptical

A paper published in the medical journal Laryngoscope used rather expensive tympanometry and found that ear candles exert no suction. The researchers also found no reduction in the amount of wax after a programme of ear candling. Although, if you're getting bored of all these negative findings, they did ask 122 colleagues, and collected 21 cases of serious injury from burning wax falling on to the ear drum.