Ear candling is supposed to rid the ear of excess wax. I haven't tried this yet, but I'm skeptical about getting rid of something that seems like a natural defense.
Ear candling is an alternative method of wax removal that's become very popular.
The candles themselves are hollow cones, made from a combination of paraffin and beeswax and have cloth on the tapered end. You put the tapered end in the ear canal and have someone light the other end. The idea is that as the flame burns, a vacuum is created, with a warm draft that draws wax from the ear. Popular though this practice may be, medical studies have raised some doubts about its efficacy. In one, pressure measurements in an ear canal model demonstrated that the candles didn't produce negative pressure, and a limited clinical trial at the Spokane Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic showed that no wax was removed.