note 77829 added to ref.mail

I have been having serious trouble trying to nail this problem down.... I am trying to email html from a text field in my MySQL DB. The html is stored in the DB under the field titled "emaildecline" Here Is the code I am using: if ($action == "decline") { $query = "delete from orders where id=$id and merchant=$merchant"; mysql_query( $query); if ($sendemail == "yes") { mail("\"$name\" <$email>", "Your order has been declined!", stripslashes($r['emaildecline']), "From: \"".$r['company_name']."\" <".$r['email'].">\nReply-To: ".$r['email']); } } When the email is sent the < br > and < b > and < a href > tags all show up as regular text not as displayed html...... ---- Server IP: 209.41.74.194 Probable Submitter: 68.44.74.14 ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.mail.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/77829 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/77829 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/77829 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php