Why beeswax
Why beeswax
Are beeswax candles better than soy or paraffin? What is in each one, why beeswax costs more, and what the white film means.
- Honey smell, slow, hardly drips
- No smell of its own, softer, dyed
- From crude oil, sooty, scented
Most candles you can buy are paraffin. Paraffin is what is left over when crude oil is refined into fuel, bleached white, with dye and fragrance oil stirred in to make it smell like something. Soy candles are soybean oil that has been hardened, usually with some paraffin blended back in to help it hold a shape, and they still need added scent to smell of anything.
Beeswax is different in kind. It is what a hive builds its comb from. The bees make it, the beekeeper melts the old comb down, and that is the candle. Hannah adds a cotton wick and a lot of patience. Nothing else goes in.
What that changes
It smells like honey. Faintly, the way the inside of a hive does. There is no added scent, so a room never smells of “vanilla cupcake”, only of a candle burning and a little honey underneath.
It burns slower and brighter. Beeswax melts at a higher temperature than soy or paraffin, so a taper of the same size lasts longer, and the flame sits warmer and steadier. Hannah has not timed each candle yet, so there are no burn-time numbers on this site until she has burned one of each and written it down.
The colour is the colour of the wax. No dye. It ranges from pale butter to deep gold depending on what the bees were foraging on and how old the comb was, so two candles from different batches are never quite the same shade.
It does not drip much. A beeswax taper in still air burns straight down with almost no drip. Put it in a draft and it leans and runs, like any candle. How to look after them covers that.
The white film
Pure beeswax grows a soft white bloom as it sits, a bit like the dusting on a plum. It is the wax itself, not mould and not dust, and it only happens on the real thing. Wipe it off with a soft cloth, warm it away for a second with a hairdryer, or leave it. Some people like it.
Why it costs more
A pound of beeswax costs many times what a pound of paraffin does, and each taper is built up one thin layer at a time, dipped and hung to cool and dipped again. A thin pair is a good hour of Hannah’s evening. The price on the candles page is the same whether you buy here, at a market table, or in a shop that stocks them.
The wax itself comes from a friend’s hives here in the valley, which is the part she is proudest of.
| Beeswax | Soy | Paraffin | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Wax the bees made for their comb | Hardened soybean oil, often with paraffin blended in | What is left when crude oil is refined |
| Smell | Honey, faint, nothing added | Nothing without fragrance oil | Nothing without fragrance oil |
| Colour | Butter to gold, from the wax itself | White, dyed | White, dyed |
| Melting point | High, so it burns slowly | Low | Low to middling |
| Made by | Bees, then Hannah, here | A factory | A refinery |