What is Beeswax?
Not very many species of bees make hives. Most bees are solitary, living in the soil, dead wood, or even an Air Bee-N-Bee in your garden. On the contrary, honeybees have an extremely social hierarchy and make honeycomb hives. Female workers secrete wax from in between their abdominal segments, building up beeswax into cells where the queen lays eggs and workers create honey.
What to BEE-ware of When Buying Candles!
Hundreds of years ago, most candles were made of beeswax, but now cheap and toxic replacements are much more common. Now most candles contain at least a small percentage of paraffin wax, a crude oil byproduct, treated and bleached with benzene, formaldehyde, and other chemical solvents to prepare it for use in candles.
Problems with Paraffin Wax
In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded that burning paraffin candles emits harmful toxins and increase health risks with multiple exposures. Carcinogenic chemicals like toluene, benzene and others are released from candles made of wax blends containing any amount of paraffin. Believe it or not, burning petrochemical paraffin also smells bad, so candles made of this wax are often scented with synthetic fragrance oils to counteract the nasty chemical smells. Most synthetic fragrance oils contain phthalates to hold the scent. Phthalates produce toxic fumes when burned that can aggravate allergy and asthma symptoms and can even alter hormone levels.
Problems with Soy Wax
Soy is often considered a sustainable alternative for candle wax over paraffin, even though soy grown on an industrial scale can have noteworthy negative environmental and socio-economic impacts. Contrary to what so many other businesses want you to believe, just because a material is plant-based doesn’t make it sustainable. Most soy is grown in South America, where crops are a major cause of deforestation, often grown in a monoculture, using tons of pesticides, and requiring intensive processing to transform the plant into a usable wax.
Technically, to be labelled a soy candle, the wax must only contain 51% soy, therefore many “soy candles” can also contain a significant amount of paraffin wax too. Unfortunately, most modern candle packaging does not offer transparency around their ingredient lists, using strategically vague keywords such as “wax blend” or simply mystery words like “fragrance”.
Benefits of Beeswax
Beeswax is the only naturally existing wax on earth, making it the cleanest and most renewable resource for making non-toxic candles. Beeswax is biodegradable, food-safe, and requires no chemical processing like soy. Beeswax candles offer a bright golden flame, the longest, cleanest burn of any candle.
Beeswax candles are speculated to emit negative ions like a natural air purifier. These negative ions bind to large, positive ions floating in the air (like dust, pollen, mold, and other allergens) providing the cleanest, natural candle flame possible.
Beeswax is a material with natural antibiotic properties, often used in products such as candles, soap, and skin care products. Beeswax is one of three components that make up the triple threat of food-safe ingredients used to coat our reusable beeswax food wraps.
And finally, beeswax candles last so much longer than other ingredients because they burn at a much slower rate. Beeswax candles can seem to be on the expensive side, especially when compared to dangerously cheap, commercially available candles. But because they burn so much longer, you get more out of your money with beeswax candles. Our concrete candles are quite small, only about 1-1.5 ounces, or somewhere between a tea light and votive size candle, but they can burn for over 15 hours!
Problems with Pure Beeswax Container Candles
Although beeswax has so many amazing qualities, it does have some downfalls when it comes to candle-making. Pure beeswax tends to crack and shrink if the candle cools down too quickly. While cracked wax does nothing but affect the aesthetic of the candle, it’s still not ideal for container candles.
Craftovert Co.’s Solution: A Perfectly Balanced Beeswax Blend
Beeswax burns very hot, so by blending the beeswax with a softer oil, such as coconut oil, the melting point of the candle is lowered for a more even, slow burn. Coconut is also a great addition to candle wax because it holds and releases scent wonderfully, unlike stubborn beeswax. And finally, the combination of refined coconut oil to our warm cream-colored beeswax, makes the final candle as close as you can get to a pure white color with safely filtered beeswax.
Our signature candle wax blend is only ever made with 2 ingredients in a perfectly balanced ratio; naturally filtered beeswax & naturally refined coconut oil. No paraffin, palm oil or soy waxes are ever used in Craftovert CO. Candles. We worked on our recipe for years, fine-tuning our candle formulas for a brilliantly bright and long-burning candle, with less chances of tunneling around the wick.
Our Promise of Safe, Sustainable Ingredients
We believe in providing complete transparency about the products you bring into your home. We know toxic chemicals should not be burned and inhaled, especially in confined indoor areas. Craftovert CO. will always prioritize your health, sustainability, and the safety of our products over conveniently cheap production prices. We are very careful with our wax suppliers because some companies will use a bleach or chemical filtration process to remove the deep golden hue of beeswax. Craftovert CO. only ever uses high-quality, naturally filtered beeswax and candle-safe, pure essential oils for subtly scenting our candles.