Ear candles, also known as ear cones, are promoted as a low-cost, effective treatment for ear wax.

There are hollow tubes of fabric impregnated with paraffin or beeswax.

One end is placed in the entrance to the ear canal,

and the other end is lit. After 15 minutes or so, the flame is extinguished, and a brownish-waxy

substance can be seen within the remaining stub. This is claimed to be earwax drawn out by some

sort of vacuum chimney effect, but the same residue,

presumably from the burning wax smoke, appears if you burn it alone outside the ear.

Researchers actually took the additional step of running used ear candle stubs through a mass

spectrometer, and indeed no evidence of ear wax was found.

Not surprisingly perhaps since tympanometric measurements showed no signs of negative chimney

effect pressure at any point.

Not to be dissuaded, proponents suggest that, while no earwax may be drawn out that

day, the candling process at least heats up and melts the earwax,

which then comes out naturally over the next few days.

But Health Canada measured the air temperature at the ear end of the burning candle,

and the highest temperature reach was only 72 degrees Fahrenheit,

well below body temperature. Though the purported theories were found to be implausible and demonstrably wrong,

the only way to really tell if it works is to examine the wax buildup in people before and after ear candling.

Photographs inside the ear canal were taken before and after ear candling.

Not only was no wax removed, but in some of the ear canals, candle wax was deposited.

So they ended up worse than they were before.

Not to mention the recorded complications, including earburns, candle wax and lockage of ear canals,

...