Walk into any home goods store and you'll find candles everywhere — tall pillars, little votives, fancy jars with French names on them. They all look beautiful. But flip one over and check the label, and you'll quickly realize most of them are made with the same cheap ingredient: paraffin wax.

We're not here to scare you. But if you burn candles regularly in your home, it's worth knowing what's actually inside them — and why the wax type matters more than most people realize.