Suzannah Jackson lost her appetite while melting scraps of candles.

It was to be the spark of an ingenious idea and one, she couldn’t believe, hadn’t been explored before.

The 32-year-old’s work as an EFT (emotional freedom technique) practitioner had brought her into contact with clients battling binge eating and weight problems and, ironically, Suzannah stumbled on her unusual appetite suppressant candle while seeking things to do with her three-year-old daughter, Maisy-Rose on a rainy day last February.

Melting the wax, Suzannah, who also has an 18-month-old son, Angus, realised she hadn’t felt hungry all day. “After I’d been making these candles I realised I didn’t want to eat anything. I thought ‘is there an appetite suppressant candle?’. I researched it and thought I’d make one!” she explains.

Experimenting with various essential oils led Suzannah to a secret concoction she believes can put clients on the road to slimming success.

Since creating her website and launching GlimmerSlim in June she has distributed her candles across the globe and is particularly aware of their popularity across the pond from customer requests. Although bound by confidentiality, she knows some of the candles she has produced in the kitchen of her East Morton home have been bound for Hollywood!

“The response from America has been amazing,” says Suzannah.

“People are wanting to improve themselves or lose weight and most women love candles and I thought all that would be a great combination.”

Suzannah mainly retails through her website, although she has some of her products in a few local shops. She is also in talks with a major retailer. “It’s fantastic. The response has been amazing from all over the world.”

The former car saleswoman has also applied to the BBC 2 programme, Dragon’s Den, where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of successful businessmen and women hoping to secure some financial backing.

In the meantime she’s concentrating on ‘forging ahead’ with her promotion of the slimming product she says is already achieving success.

“It is a secret blend of essential oils and if you think about your sense of smell it has such a powerful effect on appetite. If you smell a bacon sandwich your mouth starts watering but this candle has the opposite effect.”

Although pleasant smelling, the candle can somehow suppress appetites. Suzannah explains through research into the psychology of smells she looked at the effects certain smells had on people.

“I have researched into essential oils and they are very powerful and each different oil is a different appetite suppressant,” explains Suzannah.

“It has always been known that appetite and aroma are inexorably linked because the sense of smell is closely linked to your taste.”

Suzannah says 83 per cent of the people who tested her candles said their appetite was significantly reduced. Many also found the crackling sound from the wooden wicks she uses, which make the candles burn longer, helped them to relax.

Natural soy wax, used in their production, is also cleaner burning and is beneficial to the environment.

Suzannah explains the four main reasons why people fail to lose weight is lack of willpower, not enough time and lack of support.

Snacking can contribute to piling on the pounds and the most popular time tends to be sitting down in front of the television on an evening, but this is also when metabolisms are slower and can lead to weight gain.

Suzannah says lighting a GlimmerSlim candle in the evening can take away the craving for a chocolate bar or biscuit. “The best unique selling point is it is drug free; it’s easy and it doesn’t require any willpower,” she says.

But you can’t always burn a candle when you feel the urge for a biscuit.

“I am developing some more products, expanding the range for situations where you cannot light a candle,” says Suzannah, referring to the handy bottles of essential oils she is producing which she says people can put on a hanky or have on their desk.

Mavis Driver succumbed to snacking while running a marketing company with her husband. The 64-year-old from Bingley believes working in a stressful profession led to ‘emotional eating.’ She’d tried diets. “I started a diet on a Monday and it finished at lunchtime,” says Mavis.

She bought her first candle more than a month ago after reading about it in the Telegraph & Argus newspaper, Bradford.

“I am very interested in alternative therapies and it appealed to me when I read about it because I would not use a drug to lose weight.”

Mavis lights her candle for half an hour to suppress her craving for a snack and believes she’s lost about 5lbs. “I’m not vastly overweight. I would like to be as I used to be and I have definitely lost some weight. I can honestly say that because I am not eating chocolate, biscuits and crisps.

“I can honestly say it does work.”

World Karate champion, Paul Newby and his partner, Siobhan Hayes, who fights for England in Karate, say the candle has helped them retain their competitive weights.

Paul explains he often struggles losing the last few kilos to reach his fighting weight. He has even trained in sweat suits!

“The fighting part is easy, the weight loss is the hard part. I’ve always been looking around for different things and the beauty about the candle is it’s drug free.”

He says lighting the candle on an evening when they get in from training takes away their temptation to snack.

“It helps us along with our training,” says Paul.

Says Suzannah: “Primarily it’s an appetite suppressant in the form of a candle but it’s not just your normal scented candle because it has a function as well. It does suppress your appetite and it’s an alternative to having pills.

“And,” she adds “Why burn calories when you can burn a GlimmerSlim?!”