Harry K, yesterday
Hopi - What? - A Load of Old Earwax
Too much noisy punk music with more recent touches by Alec Empire and Shitmat have finally screwed my ears. In a vain hope that the constant whistling was due to some sort of wax deafness and not permanent punk damage I succumbed to the latest big thing in the ear market – Hopi Ear Candles.
Yes this is embarrassing, lying down with an eight inch long thin hollow candle poking out of your ear is no way to gain hard core macho points but in a hippy moment of weakness that is where I found myself.
While I did not think it likely that it would ‘cleanse internal brain impurities’ as promised I thought it might suck out the earwax with some sort of vacuum effect caused by the flame.
After lying on my side for twenty minutes feeling like a complete idiot with the candle flame, from the hopi ear candle, burning nearer and nearer to my head I was starting to worry: my ear was getting hotter and I began to fear for my perfectly styled head of hair, luckily it was soon over.
Cutting open the stub of the hollow candle I looked inside – it was full of disgusting earwax, it was brilliant! It actually worked, even though my ears did not feel any different here was the waxy proof.
But…..
I could not help wondering. So I dug around in the shed, found an old bottle put some water in the bottom and managed to force one of these hollow candles into the bottle and lit it. As the hopi ear candle burnt down it wasn’t sucking any of the water up which was a bit worrying as I thought it might be a lot easier to suck up than earwax. When the candle had burnt down to a couple of inches I took it out of the bottle and cut it open and… there was the earwax inside, which was pretty bloody miraculous as it had not been near any ears. Obviously what looks like earwax isn’t it at all. What a con, I’d lay down and looked like a dick for nothing.
Still I had been lucky, I’ve since found out that in a survey of Ear, Nose and Throat specialists between 10% and 20% have had referrals from people after using ear candles. This is often due to candle wax dripping into the ear and perforating the ear drum. In fact the ear drum is a bit of an impediment to most of the non earwax claims such as it cleaning the inner ear and sinuses, let alone brain impurities (!) as these lie behind the ear drum which does not have holes big enough for stuff to be sucked through, unless of course you have perforated it by dropping hot wax on it.
Actually there is not any sucking anyway. To get the pressure needed to suck out earwax you would need something like a toilet plunger (not recommended!). As it is there is no vacuum made by these candles. In tests more scientific than my bottle test they have registered exactly no pressure change.
Although the ones stuck in my ear were Hopi ear candles I doubt they have ever seen a Hopi as they are also advertised as Tibetan, Egyptian, Chinese and apparently even Atlantean.
Antlantean! The only way I could feel more silly, having used these ear candles, is if they brought out arse candles where I had to lie on a bed and had a hollow candle stuck in my arse to the sound of a new age CD.
Hopi Arse Candles the new best thing!
Too much noisy punk music with more recent touches by Alec Empire and Shitmat have finally screwed my ears. In a vain hope that the constant whistling was due to some sort of wax deafness and not permanent punk damage I succumbed to the latest big thing in the ear market – Hopi Ear Candles.
Yes this is embarrassing, lying down with an eight inch long thin hollow candle poking out of your ear is no way to gain hard core macho points but in a hippy moment of weakness that is where I found myself.
While I did not think it likely that it would ‘cleanse internal brain impurities’ as promised I thought it might suck out the earwax with some sort of vacuum effect caused by the flame.
After lying on my side for twenty minutes feeling like a complete idiot with the candle flame, from the hopi ear candle, burning nearer and nearer to my head I was starting to worry: my ear was getting hotter and I began to fear for my perfectly styled head of hair, luckily it was soon over.
Cutting open the stub of the hollow candle I looked inside – it was full of disgusting earwax, it was brilliant! It actually worked, even though my ears did not feel any different here was the waxy proof.
But…..
I could not help wondering. So I dug around in the shed, found an old bottle put some water in the bottom and managed to force one of these hollow candles into the bottle and lit it. As the hopi ear candle burnt down it wasn’t sucking any of the water up which was a bit worrying as I thought it might be a lot easier to suck up than earwax. When the candle had burnt down to a couple of inches I took it out of the bottle and cut it open and… there was the earwax inside, which was pretty bloody miraculous as it had not been near any ears. Obviously what looks like earwax isn’t it at all. What a con, I’d lay down and looked like a dick for nothing.
Still I had been lucky, I’ve since found out that in a survey of Ear, Nose and Throat specialists between 10% and 20% have had referrals from people after using ear candles. This is often due to candle wax dripping into the ear and perforating the ear drum. In fact the ear drum is a bit of an impediment to most of the non earwax claims such as it cleaning the inner ear and sinuses, let alone brain impurities (!) as these lie behind the ear drum which does not have holes big enough for stuff to be sucked through, unless of course you have perforated it by dropping hot wax on it.
Actually there is not any sucking anyway. To get the pressure needed to suck out earwax you would need something like a toilet plunger (not recommended!). As it is there is no vacuum made by these candles. In tests more scientific than my bottle test they have registered exactly no pressure change.
Although the ones stuck in my ear were Hopi ear candles I doubt they have ever seen a Hopi as they are also advertised as Tibetan, Egyptian, Chinese and apparently even Atlantean.
Antlantean! The only way I could feel more silly, having used these ear candles, is if they brought out arse candles where I had to lie on a bed and had a hollow candle stuck in my arse to the sound of a new age CD.
Hopi Arse Candles the new best thing!
This article came from issue 11 of Now or Never!, available to buy here
If you enjoyed this article you mighgt also like Crystal Healing - Give Me Strength
If you enjoyed this article you mighgt also like Crystal Healing - Give Me Strength
