Reviewed by Marcus Knapman, BSc (Hons) Computing ·
Researched from 100+ Amazon customer reviews
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There are two kinds of people when it comes to lighting a fire: those who can do it with a bit of newspaper and a single match, and the rest of us, who burn through half a roll of kitchen towel, swear a fair bit and end up with a smoky room and a cold hearth. If you're in the second camp, a decent firelighter is the cheapest fix going.
The Pelle & Sol 200 Natural Firelighters are made from wood wool and wax, and they're pitched as a cleaner alternative to the old chemical-smelling white cubes. No odour, no nasties, and a claimed burn time of up to 10 minutes, which is plenty to get kindling and a couple of logs going.
My view, having read through the spec sheet and what's said about this style of firelighter, is that this is a sensible, low-fuss buy. At £10.99 for 200 pieces, you're paying roughly 5p a firelighter, which is hard to argue with. It won't change your life, but it might stop you swearing at your log burner on a Tuesday night. I wasn't able to find an Amazon star rating to lean on, so I'm judging this on the spec and the design of the thing itself, and I'll flag where that leaves me with unanswered questions.
Natural firelighters like these are built on a simple idea. Wood wool (those fine, curly shavings) catches easily and acts as a wick, while wax soaks into it and provides the sustained burn. The product data says each one burns clean and steady for up to 10 minutes. That's the key number, because it's the gap between a firelighter that merely flashes and one that actually gives your kindling time to catch.
Ten minutes is generous. Most fires fail because the starter burns out before the logs have taken, and a longer burn gives you a margin for error. Just one is listed as enough to ignite logs or charcoal, which suggests you won't be piling several into the grate like a nervous arsonist.
This is where natural firelighters earn their reputation. The listing says these are odourless and free from harmful chemicals, and that matters more than it sounds. Anyone who has lit a barbecue with the old paraffin-style cubes knows the faint chemical tang that can hang over the first few minutes of cooking. If you're lighting a pizza oven or grilling food over charcoal, you don't want that near your dinner.
The same goes for indoor use. A wood burner in a living room is a small, enclosed space, and a firelighter that doesn't stink out the room is a sensible choice. I can't vouch for the smell myself, as I'm working from the product data rather than a sniff test, but the wood and wax composition is exactly what you'd expect to be low on odour.
The listing is keen to point out versatility, and for once it's justified. These are pitched for wood burners, open fires, stoves, chimineas, fire pits, pizza ovens and barbecues, indoors and out, summer and winter. That's a big claim, but the logic holds up. A firelighter is a firelighter, and a block of wood wool and wax doesn't much care whether it's sitting under charcoal or kindling.
For a household with a log burner for the winter and a barbecue for the summer, that's one purchase doing two seasons' work. It also means the 200 count is less daunting than it first sounds. Light the fire most evenings through the cold months, add a few barbecues and the odd pizza night, and a box like this could last you a long while.
The pack size is the value story here. At £10.99 for 200, the cost per firelighter is tiny, and buying in bulk means you're not nipping out for a small pack every few weeks. That said, 200 is a lot of firelighters to store. They'll want keeping somewhere dry, because damp wood wool is a sorry thing, and a big box isn't the most elegant addition to a hearth. If you only light a fire a few times a year, this is almost certainly more than you need.
For regular burners, though, it's the sensible option. The cost per use is so low that it makes the cheaper-looking alternatives seem a false economy, particularly if they come with a smell attached.
Here's where I have to be straight about the limits of my research. With no Amazon rating available, I can't point to thousands of buyers confirming the 10-minute burn time, and that figure is the manufacturer's claim rather than something I've timed. Burn times in the real world depend on airflow, how tightly the kindling is stacked and how damp your wood is. Treat up to 10 minutes as a ceiling, not a promise.
The other mild gripe is that wood wool firelighters can crumble a little in the box if they're knocked about, which leaves you with loose shavings at the bottom. It's a cosmetic issue rather than a performance one, but it's worth knowing about. Nothing here is a dealbreaker. It's simply the trade-off of a natural product against a rock-hard chemical block.
If you have a wood burner, a pizza oven or a barbecue and you're tired of fiddly, smelly or unreliable fire starters, these are an easy yes. They're cheap, they're natural and the pack size is generous. If you light a fire once a year, buy a smaller pack. If you want a firelighter with a long track record of independent reviews behind it, the lack of an Amazon rating here means you're taking a small leap of faith, albeit a low-cost one.
The Pelle & Sol 200 Natural Firelighters are a sensible, cheap and clean way to get a fire going, whether that's a log burner in January or a barbecue in July. Regular fire-lighters will get their money's worth; occasional users should look at a smaller pack.
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