As we get further into the candle business, people have asked why we're using beeswax rather than paraffin or soy for our candles. That's a good question that deserves a good answer. Unfortunately, this answer is WAY too long for a blog post, so we've added this page in order to try and explain our thinking a bit.
So, why beeswax? In a nutshell, because it’s all-natural, hypo-allergenic, clean-burning, and short-cycle renewable.
But what does all that mean? Beeswax is all-natural because . . . well, it comes from bees! Each bee has wax glands that excrete wax for use as hive-building material. Once the beekeeper extracts all that delicious honey from the combs, the combs are boiled to melt the wax. Beeswax is less dense than water, so the pure wax floats to the top of the boiler while all the debris and pollutants sink to the bottom. The clean, pure wax is then skimmed off the top. We take one step further, using natural processes to whiten the wax. Why do we do this? Because candles should be beautiful, as well as useful and pleasant smelling. Whitening the wax allows us to dye the wax any number of shades.
When beeswax burns it gives off none of the irritants and pollutants that petroleum-based waxes (such as paraffin) do. Ever leaned over a paraffin candle? Whew! Paraffin candles give off caustic chemicals like toluene and benzene, known carcinogens. Beeswax candles give off none of those.
Lastly, beeswax is what we like to call “short-cycle renewable.” Much is made of green business and sustainable agricultural products these days, but with no central regulation of terms such as “green” or “eco-friendly” or even “natural,” it is left to the buyer to figure out what is truly environmentally responsible and what is just marketing hype. A product that is considered “renewable” typically is one which is naturally replaced over time. Lumber is actually a renewable resource when the trees are replanted after logging. So is oil, believe it or not. However, the time it takes for a given product to be renewed must be considered. Trees re-grow, but it takes years and years – even generations – to replace a forest. Oil does eventually get renewed as plants 
and animals on the surface die and decay. However, it can take millennia for this to happen (the oil in your car may have once been a plant that saw dinosaurs roaming the earth). Add to that the fact that we take much more oil out of the ground than could ever be replaced by natural processes and you see why oil isn’t considered the most “green” product.
and animals on the surface die and decay. However, it can take millennia for this to happen (the oil in your car may have once been a plant that saw dinosaurs roaming the earth). Add to that the fact that we take much more oil out of the ground than could ever be replaced by natural processes and you see why oil isn’t considered the most “green” product.
So, what about beeswax? Well, we refer to beeswax as short-cycle renewable because the wax taken from a hive can be renewed by the bees in a matter of weeks. That’s quite a comparison - weeks for beeswax or millennia (or longer) for oil.
Paraffin is an oil-based waste-product left over when oil is refined into gasoline and other materials. Added to the fact that oil takes an eternity to renew is the fact that paraffin burns dirty and gives off all kinds of nasty chemicals. Sadly, most aromatherapy and scented candles out there are made from paraffin, with stearic acid (a by-product of meat packing) and other additives thrown in for hardness and surface shine. Even those that say “beeswax” on them can, by law, contain as little as 10 percent beeswax! The rest of the candle is usually paraffin.
At Odd Ducks Farm we use only 100 percent beeswax and 100 percent natural essential oils for our scents. Wait! We just said oil! Doesn’t that mean petroleum products? No. Natural essential oils are made by plants and extracted by boiling them in vats and cooking off the water and other materials, leaving clean oils with all the scent of the original plants. Where possible, our scents are also phthalate-free. Phthalates are not only hard to spell, they can have serious health side-effects for people sensitive to them. We work with our venders all the time to try and limit the use of phthalates in our scents, and nearly all of our scents are certified phthalate free.
Even when all of the environmental aspects of various waxes are ignored, beeswax comes out on top in many areas. Beeswax melts at a higher temperature than nearly all other waxes. Because of this, beeswax burns much slower. 8 ounces of beeswax burns longer than 14 ounces of soy wax. Also, because beeswax burns at a higher temperature, we can use less essential oil and still get the same amount of scent than other waxes.
What about soy? Or palm oil?
Much has been made in the candle world of palm oil and soy waxes (I bet you didn't know there was a candle world, did you?). Both have their virtues, but we avoid them for different reasons.
Soy wax is made from soya beans (yep, that ‘a’ is supposed to be there). Once they are picked they are rolled into flakes and their oil is extracted. The soy oil is then used to make a solid wax. Many candle makers and shops have latched onto soy because of its perceived sustainability and low price. Unfortunately, soy melts at a much cooler temperature than other waxes. This means that the light from soy candles is dimmer and colder in tone (bluish rather than golden or red) and it also means that scents do not broadcast as well, requiring the use of more essential oils. Because soya beans are grown on farms, they are renewable within a year of being harvested. That’s good news when compared with petroleum waxes like paraffin. However, the soya industry is far from sustainable. Soy farms are largely limited to only a few varieties of plant by patents held by huge multi-national corporations. Those plants are, in effect, patented by those corporations, preventing farmers from holding onto seeds from last year. Each year they must purchase new seed from those corporations. How do they afford those seeds? They get loans of course. Who gives them loan? Yep. Those same corporations. That means the corporations control prices and keep farmers from earning a fair amount for their harvest. And even worse, those varieties of soy are bred specifically to be resistant to herbicides like RoundUp. Why? So farmers can spray their fields with RoundUp to keep the weeds down. Unfortunately, in addition to killing weeds, RoundUp and other herbicides have devastating effects on the soil and biodiversity. The business of soy farming, not the soya plants themselves, has nasty effects on the environment and agriculture as a whole. For this reason, we chose not to use soy waxes in our candles.
When palm oil became widely available, many people latched onto palm oil waxes for the same reasons as soy. It’s short-cycle renewable (produced from the fruits of palm trees) and burns with many of the same qualities as soy. However, the simple fact that people wanted to buy palm wax drove producers to plant more and more palm plantations. Palms are grown mostly in places with lax environmental restrictions such as southern Asia. As a result, research by independent organizations found that thousands of acres of rainforest and pristine wildlands were being razed each year to plant more and more palm trees. Not only that, but because palm wax comes from the other side of the world, it takes ships and trucks and trains to get it here, causing more pollution and further impacting the environment. For these reasons we don’t use any palm wax in our candles.
