While we're on the topic of soap killing bacteria, what about candles? Can they kill bacteria too? Evidently so. British researchers did tests with candles containing essential oils of orange, palmarosa, may chang (litsea cubea), thyme, and a tea tree derivative. They found that burning the candles with those essential oils effectively killed both staph and E. coli bacteria. Some oils worked better than others, but all had some effect on the bacteria. Additionally, they found that it was the combination of the essential oil and the flame that worked best. Just the essential oils alone didn't kill any bacteria. Read the Article. Very interesting.
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