Well, I'm not sure. I read that also but I did it and my daughter did it also and got differing amounts of the "earwax" substance and some of the powdery stuff. I'd believe that the powdery stuff was from the ear candle but it really seemed when I did it that I could feel liquified stuff being drawn out of my ear. My daughter told me she felt "pus" coming out of her ear - she's had terrible ear infections in the past - I think she felt that something was coming out of her ear.

I know that I feel better and I don't think it's just a placebo effect like the site mentions, I also feel that drainage has been released because I have sinus drainage today and so did my daughter this morning and neither one of us had it yesterday.

I think ear candling is like any other alternative treatment, you will always have those that it doesn't work for or who have a bad experience and will call it quackery, you'll have the doctors who don't believe in anything but modern medicine and you'll have the people who feel it is helpful and believe in it. I'm usually pretty middle-of-the-road and don't really take the fanatic side either way but I did not have a bad experience and would definitely do it again.