Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you use soy wax for your candles?

Soy wax is a plant-based and completely renewable resource made from soy beans grown right here in the American Midwest. Soy wax burns more slowly and cleanly compared to another leading wax type, paraffin wax, which is a petroleum byproduct. It is generally less expensive than many other eco-friendly wax types, owing to domestic soy bean production, and is a lovely creamy white in its natural state (unlike, say, beeswax,) offering a great blank canvas for me to create many fun candle concepts. 

Why don't you use essential oils to scent your candles?

I do, partially. While a great option for those who desire completely naturally derived products, essential oils can often be difficult to work in with in candles, may change the color of the wax, and may not offer as strong or as predictable a fragrance outcome in candle creation. I choose to use professional grade fragrance oils formulated specifically for candle production. Many of these fragrance oils do contain various essential oils as ingredients.

Aren't fragrance oils synthetic and therefore bad for you?

While the fragrance oils I use contain synthetic components, synthetic does NOT mean harmful or unsafe. I use all my fragrance oils in compliance with the IFRA (International Fragrance Associations) safety usage guidelines, and the companies I purchase my fragrance oils from have their own stringent guidelines on safety. All of the fragrance oils I used for Prismafire candles are phthalate-free, paraben-free, Proposition 65 compliant, cruelty-free, and non-toxic. By opening myself up to using these proven-safe fragrance oils and not just essential oils, I have a much wider pool of creative fragrance options with which to create my candle concepts. After all, there unfortunately exists no strawberry poundcake plant from which to harvest strawberry poundcake essential oil. You cannot put old books in a press to create extract of library. I aim to create evocative fragrance concepts while providing a high standard of safety for myself and my patrons. 

Are your candles safe to burn if I have pets in my home?

Besides the obvious fire safety awareness, there has been some concern about the safety of pets when it comes to fragrance products (especially essential oils) since animals have keener senses than humans and may be more at risk respiratory distress. It is important to know that certain essential oils can actually be toxic to pets. Poisoning primarily happens when pets either lick or have skin exposure to undiluted EOs or if they stick their face directly into and EO diffuser. While it is the case that some of my candle fragrance oils have EOs as component ingredients in them, because I strictly follow the IFRA safety guidelines for each of my fragrance oils, the proportion of EOs and other compounds that may be toxic to pets is diluted enough to generally be considered safe with regular candle burning. That being said, pets, just like people may just have unique individual sensitivities or health challenges. It is up to you as a pet owner to determine what is best your pet's unique health needs.

What is candle "curing." Why should I wait for my candle to cure?

If you have purchased a candle from me, it may have arrived with a note on it saying that the candle will by cured on a certain date and the suggestion that you should wait until that time to burn it. Curing refers to the process of the scent oil binding to the wax and maturing/strengthening over time. The purpose of waiting for a candle to cure is that the scent output, called "hot-throw" will be at its strongest after this process. Soy wax has one of the longer cure processes among candle wax. The variety I use has a suggested cure time of 1 to 2 weeks, and I aim for a full 2 week cure time. Sometimes I choose to list candles freshly made but not cured yet in order to have quicker restock times. Nothing bad will happen if you burn a candle before it is done curing, and it does not end or ruin this process, the scent just may not be very perceptible.

Why is the wax of the candle I bought turning yellowish?

The presence of an organic compound called vanillin in the fragrance oil (present in vanilla scents, though not exclusively) can cause soy wax to turn yellowish when exposed to direct sunlight and sometimes even artificial light. Rest assured, this is only a cosmetic change, and will not effect the performance or scent output of your candle. Avoid setting your candle in a windowsill or directly under a lamp to inhibit the color change.

Why does the wax inside the candle I bought look texturey and weird?

As soy wax cools and hardens it can take on a characteristic which is called frost, which can appear as a sort of textured surface. This is just a natural characteristic of soy wax that happens sometimes and is not indicative of the quality of the wax. While things like the air temperature of the room while the candle was cooling can have some effect on the occurrence of frosting, its kind of a tricky thing that's hard to account for even in professional production. Your candle will perform just as well as it would with no frost, so just take it as a personality quirk of your unique candle. 

Why are your products cheaper on Prismafire.com compared to Etsy?

Etsy takes a percentage of the revenue of each sale on their platform. This is their cut. While it is the norm for any given e-commerce platform to have seller transaction fees like this, Etsy's is notably higher than Shopify, the platform that this website is built on. In addition to it being a numbers game, I want to foster the practice of going to artists personal websites into to engage and purchase from them directly. Often this has greater benefits for the artist/creator, but the patron can also benefit too, either from extra content, a more personal interaction, or better deals.

Why do you sell things that have art made by other artists on it?

It is true that not all the artwork featured on my products was made my me personally. However, all art used in Prismafire products is used with formal permission by the original artist and is monetarily compensated according to formally agreed upon terms by both myself and the artist. You can read about Prismafire's collaborating artists in the About page of this website, including links to their social media and places to support them. Generally, I do all the typography and graphic design for things like my slogan buttons and candle labels myself, and sometimes include artwork and stock elements that have either been personally commissioned for the that purpose or are used with permission and proper licensing according to their source.

What is your stance on AI Art?

I am staunchly against the use of AI generated art in commercial spaces. I believe it disrupts the livelihoods of career artists who have spent years of honing their craft and pushes them out of professional spaces, I believe it fundamentally undercuts the value of human-created art by getting the market used to underpriced goods and I believe that it is ethically reproachful to make money using tools that are by and large trained on stolen intellectual property. When one is not using these tools to make money or gain fame in artists' spaces (such as using the tools as creative aids for private, personal projects,) I believe it is up to the individual to discern what is right for them. But I encourage everyone to take a vocal stance protecting the rights of everyone, not just artists, to not have the content they create scraped as a matter of course and fed into the training of AI tools, and to firmly stand with and support the prioritization and fair compensation of human artists and non-generative arts in commercial spaces. Prismafire Studio has not and never will use generative AI to create artwork, graphic design, typography, advertising materials, or writing/copy for any purpose.