• There is no such thing as a soot-free wax. All organic compounds when burned will emit some carbon (soot) due to incomplete combustion. Sooting is primarily a factor of wick length and flame disturbance.

• When the flame of the candle is disturbed, the size of the flame changes and the amount of fuel being used is no longer consistent. If there is too much fuel for the flame to use it is put off in the form of soot.

• Burning candles near air vents, fans, or open windows will cause your candle to produce soot. When a breeze causes the candle flame to bounce around, its size changes. A still flame will use a consistent amount of fuel. A flame that is bouncing around will draw fuel up the wick at a variable rate, sometimes too much, other times, not enough. When a too much oil is drawn into the wick and then the flame size shrinks, not all the fuel is burned. The extra oil is expelled as soot into the air.

• When you have a candle down inside of a container the oxygen is quickly used up and more is needed for the flame to continue burning. More air is sucked into the container through the top. The flow of cool air coming into the container fights against the flow of warm air rising out of it. These setup creates a draft inside of the container which produces soot.

• One of the simiplest ways to keep candles from producing soot is to trim the wicks. Cut the wicks to 1/4" for the first lighting. If after a few minutes the flame of the candle looks too big or is bouncing around (while not in a draft) you should cut the wick a little shorter.

• The E.P.A reports that paraffin wax is refined gasoline, a by-product of petroleum. Shockingly, paraffin is harmful when burned, emitting 11 toxins, 2 above the excess cancer risk!

• Synthesized waxes are also now used in candles, as are a variety of wax blends and customized wax formulations.

• Reputable candle manufacturers use only high-quality waxes in their formulations. There are so many candles made in foreign countries, who knows what you're burning into your air.

I’m in total agreement that this has to be a candle thing. I don’t burn candles but the former owners of the house I just bought did.

Same problem here. I currently live in Florida ( been here a year), originally from NY. Never had this problem in NY. Recently I noticed the mysterious black swirls mostly on plastic, including food containers in the closed cabinet! Yuck! Everything is electric. In an apartment, water heater and a/c/heat unit are in a closet IN my apartment. (Ugh! It's my first apartment building.) I change the filter frequently. Puzzled...

Still clueless in Fla

Has nothing to do with the candles...right? That would be too easy AND if that were the case we all would have heard about it years and years ago.

Do y’all use your bathroom fans a lot? That would definitely pull air in and may explain why soot is on the toilet seat.

Ijponiti100 I don't think it has anything to do with candles. This is waaay beyond that. shannafell I don't use my fan a lot and that's not where my problem is. Plastic containers in kitchen cabinets. Windows were installed not that long ago, and the vinyl/plastic around 1 of the windows has it also

roxwella44, I don't even have a bathroom fan. What I do have is a window - a toilet seat - a clean bathroom and SOMETIMES a candle burning two rooms away. When this first happened (15 years ago) in a different home, there was rarely a candle burning and it would have been down the hall and several rooms away. In that case, I made the landlady replace the toilet seat. Nope, not the candles...cheap or otherwise.

The remarkable thing about this last episode is that the ENTIRE toilet seat was heavily covered and it seemed to happen in less than an hour, or at least it didn't become visible before that time. It occurred after I had opened the window slightly on what was a rainy, cloudy day. Connection? Maybe not. Wish I had taken a picture cause it was incredible.

Does anyone have a science geek in the family who they can show it to the next time it happens?

I don’t have it on my toilet seat either. I just thought about the drag of the fan that might pull the air there. I’ve noticed this soot in my air intake of my hvac and even around the pot lights in my ceiling. I believe it was my gas logs bc they were placed wrong where the flame was touching them. I’ve had it corrected since then. Just trying to get to the bottom of this.

I have the same problem on walls! No gas in the house, everything is electric. Found soot inside fridge and top of medicine cabinet in bathroom. It is A little bit oily and cleaned very easily with Ajax or Comet powder. The problem is so bad that I moved detergent bottles and the shapes of the bottles were on the wall, black....

Hah, that's it...the aliens have arrived and they look like sooty-moldy things : )

Other than the candles, the only other connection i can make between what I’m reading is the the unusually rainy weather.

OK everybody, I'd like to retract my statement about it NOT being candles! I did more research and came up with this:

https://rainbowintl.com/blog/black-soot-deposition-the-sinister-side-of-scented-candles

BSD! It's a thing and if you read it, it makes sense.

This makes total sense.

You did some great research! Thanks!

I honestly didn't think burning a candle occasionally could do some much damage, but after finding and reading that, I'm a believer now. I'm not going to burn candles anymore so I can be sure they were the culprit.

Oh bees wax! No, seriously. Bees wax...it's the only way to go.

Great work and thanks : )

I too had these problems with anything plastic in my brand new house. Reading this thread helped me figure out the culprit. While I do think many candles are the cause of it, that was not the case for me. After moving in and rediscovering an old set of beautiful parrafin oil lamps, I began lighting them each night after dinner. Thanks to all of the suggestions and information offered in these posts, I deduced that the cause was the using the oil lamps. Once I stopped, the streaks no longer appeared.

Like everyone else, I was astonished to find these streaks on anything plastic spread out over the three floors in my townhouse. But when you think about how our hvac systems work, you realize that the candle or oil lamp byproduct is circulating all over your home. And I don’t know why, but the soot is attracted to plastic vs. other materials.

I continue to burn my regular candles with no issues so I’m lucky that my candle is not one of the problem ones.

We just moved into a newly constructed house. Everything brand new. We have this film under all three of our toilet seats. We also noticed it on a new plastic waste basket we bought for the bathroom.

We live in Juneau where it rains a lot. We burn candles occasionally, electric heat, no gas appliances.

We were wondering if something in the house is emitting a residue of some sort, i.e., new carpet, linoleum, light fixtures?. I remember after purchasing a new car the windows would film up due to the plastics in the car heating up. Maybe this is what is going on?

I had a similar issue. Black soot like substance on certain white plastics. Some that were in closed cabinets. I, too, burn candles occasionally. I refused to believe that was the problem (not saying it's the same for everyone) but I cleaned everything (comes off easily enough). i found this article:

https://rainbowintl.com/blog/black-soot-deposition-the-sinister-side-of-scented-candles

I stopped burning candles and problem solved. Hope this helps

I used some vinegar and Dawn soap, and it helped remove some of the soot on the white plastic of the medicine cabinet door that is above my Yankee candle. I read that article, thanks roxella55! In the article it wrote it listed quality candle manufacturers that should limit BCD, but I didn't see the list. Are some candles better than others? I saw that ljponti100 said beeswax is the best, so I might try to burn those candles. Maybe. If they aren't a million dollars, lol. But limiting candle burning has helped a lot.

has anyone thought about bbqing with charcoal near the house, or exhaust from a car? I know that can be a reason for me???

Not a problem for me ...

This article answered the above question for me.http://www.homeenergy.org/show/article/id/1360

I just noticed today. I woke up this morning and blew my nose and it was black. I checked with a cotton swab and the swab was black as well.

I shook it off, hurried into work and then when I came home black streaks on the toilet lid. Last night I left a Better Homes and Gardens candle burning for quite some time. It was new I just bought it

vents..anything heating

We have the same dark spotomg on our toilet seats. Newly bought seats 1 month ago. We are in Florida and this is the first Christmas Never noticed it till this week but we did start burning some candles. It’s not a dusty gray dirt it’s a greasy black smudgy stuff. Does wipe off but it has returned. I’m thinking too it’s the candles we started burning. Going to not burn and see if it returns. Thanks for the info!

As I am googling to try to find a solution to the problem as I am running across this thread. We are having the same issue with the toilet seats, if there’s a cobweb in the corner it will be black, our vents in this house that was built in 2004 look like they have been here for 80 years, I’ve noticed it coming out the edge of the vents, I have blowed it out of my nose, I have coughed it up, my new white comforter has a gray looking color to it now we can’t figure it out. All the HVAC people tell us it’s the candles. It’s hard for me to believe it’s the candles and I only use bath and Bodyworks candles. And I’ve used them for years and never had this problem until this house.

It makes me a little frightened to say the least is something going on that could be dangerous to cause a fire? My house doesn’t smell like smoke. I have no fireplace or gas logs. Everything is electric. I have an AC unit with the furnace in the attic, we change our vents monthly what could this problem be.... it’s very puzzling!?

I was skeptical at first too. After cleaning the affected items, dont burn the candles for awhile. If the problem persists, at least you’ll know it’s not the candles. However, I suspect the candles are the culprit. My problem went away when I stopped using My lanterns. Not all candles are a problem. It’s hit and miss.

Ok, throwing my two cents in...I’ve had this problem when I had a pellet stove in Ohio and crummy pellets in a dif home..but not on a toilet seat, but plastic bags...and tupperware in drawers and odd things you’d find off season, now I’m in another state, SC and have a gas log fireplace not in use at the moment. But the connection I see is...I woke up this morning and I had soot on the toilet seat 2 rooms away from a candle I had lit and the celing fan running and the window open slightly...and I did have the a floor fan on aiming in the direction of the bedroom master bath from living room. (I had spot cleaned the floor and left it like that most of the day while I was out.) only time I’ve ever seen it so I say with the black soot ring around my candle...it’s the culprit this time anyway.

Right after my husband and I moved into our new house, started to noticed a coated film on inside of the white plastic toilet lid... Learned it was combination from microscopic dust and cat dandruff...Yes, our cat sheds like crazy!! Done various home remedies nothing really worked...We don't have this issue in the front guest bathroom...So my sweet husband did the next best thing replaced the old toilet seat with a new one...That seems to solve the issue....We have a gas fireplace so it wasn't soot.....

Just purchased a plastic toilet lid a couple weeks ago for my bathroom and a couple days ago I noticed the bottom of the top and second lids were covered in a light gray soot. After cleaning it off, I kept the top lid up, and after 2 days, no soot yet on the bottom of the toilet lids but my acrylic lined bathtub had the light gray soot this morning. I never had this problem before purchasing the plastic toilet lid. I plan to remove the plastic toilet lid and purchase a regular toilet lid like I had before purchasing the plastic toilet lid.

Has anyone experienced the "soot" to form into what seems like vein like?

It is in the strangest places & seems to only be centralized around the same plastic materials.

Can anyone say that they have officially ruled out mold?

I also have the problem in my bathroom and throw out the kitchen in the freezer and the refrigerator doors on the inside as well. I also developed the skin issue that has persisted for the last five years and seems to be very similar to the blackening of the walls and other plastic throughout the house.

Hey there so I live in Sitka, Alaska but have lived in Southeast Alaska since 1982 and have dealt with mold on several occasions. I stumbled on this thread because just yesterday, I decided to burn a candle that my son got me for Mother's Day. It is from the company JewelScent; where there is a piece of jewelry inside, well, I've been working from home so didn't pay too much attention to the candle until I saw the flame bouncing around and it was huge. I went over and blew it out. Also, during the day, I had my Toyostove turned on because it was chilly and would have caused a slight air to be blown when it kicks on. This morning, I went into the bathroom and there was black soot all over the toilet seat and I mean it was even underneath the seat, on the tank and on the lid of the seat (I had the lid open).

Because I have seen black soot before from candles and because I know what mold looks like, I immediately thought it was soot from the candle. I thought it was strange though that the soot traveled that far....I burned the candle in the living room and the bathroom is down the hall...passed the kitchen. I wiped it down and went about my day. I just went to take a white plastic mixing bowl down to make a loaf of bread and it was covered in the black soot too and there was a shadow of the soot on the inside of that cabinet by where the mixing bowl was. That cupboard was closed and none of the other cabinets to the left or to the right had any black soot. When I opened a drawer to get a 1 Cup white plastic measuring cup, I could see that it also had black soot and so did a few other white plastic measuring cups....

OK so how strange is that that it traveled into the kitchen, entered a closed drawer and a closed cupboard, latched on to a few plastic things; bypassing everything else even the white microwave and fridge, then headed down the hall to the bathroom and latched onto the toilet??!! I can see the toilet seat but it even latched onto the tank which isn't plastic...

To test the candle theory because my friend said there is no way it was soot and that it was mold, I wiped everything down, which, no it didn't wipe off easily...needed soap and water to come off completely with a sponge, anyway, after wiping everything down, relit that candle.... waited several hours and wouldn't you know...there was black soot on the toilet again.

VERY interesting stuff that soot is and would love to know the science behind it :)

Same! Burned candle and black on toilet seat. First time for both!!

Regarding the Black Soot Migration from scented candles, where "Soot adheres to plastic and optical devices because they are statically charged" in the article above, does this mean that the soot is only visible on the plastic and/or optical pieces, where those are the only items that need to be cleaned? Or, is the soot collecting everywhere but only visible on those items?

Same here! I’ve been noticing it slowly over the last month or so get worse. First it was styro cups & my white canvases that I paint on. Then I changed the air filter....oh my god.....it was BLACK! So I thought a minute & I looked over at the candle burning and I could see this black smoke or whatever being released. I then googled ”weird black stuff on styro cups”. That’s when I found this thread thankfully. It may not be just the candles but it seems like the Vanilla scented or this Mahogany Teakwood candle I burn is when the soot shows up. I’m not saying candles are totally the problem because I do burn other kind of candles and do not see this soot collect anywhere. Also we do have gas logs & now we’re gonna have someone come in and check those to make sure there not a problem with them. We have CM detector and it’s working properly. I’m gonna post a pic of these two latest candles and it may help someone connect the dots if they are burning the same candles & are now noticing this soot. I’m gonna read through more posts to see if I can get any other explanations. Thank you all for posting.

I’m having the exact same problem. I don‘t have any candles and my boiler has just been serviced... I think it’s the cleaning products I’m using since it started appearing after I bought something different. I haven’t been able to get out over the holidays/lockdown to get a different product, which is why I was googling for answers. It’s very difficult to find information as google keeps trying to give me articles on black spot mould and I know it’s not that.

The black residue has only appeared on my white toilet (seat & lid) and white tiles.

Having this issue too, i do burn mainstays and home n garden walmart brand candles and pretty frequently (all day) during winter months. I only noticed this a couple months ago, and am very concerned about mold. But now seeing this thread, I feel a little comforted. We moved here, FL, back in june but i dont think i notced until november and thats around when the scents i like release for the season. Could anyone possibly... load photos of what it looks like? I try and it doesnt seem to pick up on camera. Its grayish and kinda waxy. Top layer seems to just wipe off but some spots need a scrub. This house has been unoccupied since 2017 minus a few random stays here n there. There is a fireplace but idk that its operational. I also do not have central heating/air so window units and space heaters.

We’re also having the same or similar problem. So far ours is just on white plastic items between the bathroom and kitchen. We just moved into an apartment so we’re trying to figure out if it’s mold and if not, what it is. Its the oddest thing. We do leave our balcony door open a lot. We don’t use candles and being we've only been here a month, the place was repainted and cleaned, carpet and flooring replaced as well before we moved in and I had my own maids come in I can’t see it being from the previous tenants but who knows. I’d much rather it be spot than mold :-/

If it keeps coming back? Do you use a gas fireplace?

I read somewhere about lead leeching from blinds... I get the same fine black particulates on both blinds and the white plastic toilet seat ... will discintinue candle burning to see if it dissipates.

Thank you all for this! I have been noticing a strange blackness on my toilet seat and lid just the last couple of days. It is Christmas and I have been burning a Yankee candle just the last couple of days. The candle has gotten near the bottom and I have noticed the inside of the glass on the candle is black (soot.) Problem solved-throwing this candle away! That can't be good to breathe!

Okay.... but what about places where there's never been a candle in the existence of the building? We have a warehouse that gets it on the toilet seat, my car, the fans, etc! We clean and it comes right back! No furnace or anything for heating or air in this place. SO the candle theory doesn't always work and I still can't find anywhere with an answer :(

I noticed this as soon as we had new vinyl floors installed. Could this have something to do with it?

I have it tooooo!!! On new white toilets and sink tops exact same I thought it was from candles it is in both newly remodeled bathrooms.😳😳😳

I know this thread is 11 years old, but I would like to add that the culprit could be the toilet seat. I recently replaced our toilets, and they came with soft closing lids. We first notice the "soot" like residue on the seats. I believe that a small amount of grease is released as a fine dust. Several months later we noticed it on surfaces that emit air, such as our dish washer vent, and heat pump. We have used candles for years, but it was not until we replaced our toilets that the residue appeared. So it would be interesting to know how many find the residue on their toilet lids and of those how many are new installs and are they soft closing. Thanks

Yes!!!! we just got new toilets this week and they also have plastic slow closing lids! We also have always burned candles but bever noticed this gray soot until toilets were replaced.

Same here, new toilet seats, shining white plastic. Covered in black soot this morning, also had soot in my throat... this made me think I was in an episode of the 4th dimension... but I think it's due to one candle that burnt black smoke out.