Soy wax is used in all candles we sell at Comely. We will never pour any paraffin Candles.
Discovery of Soy Wax
Michael Richards, a candle maker, discovered soy wax in 1991. He was looking for a cheaper alternative to beeswax. As he experimented with different types of vegetable products, Michael eventually found a relatively cheap way to create wax from soybean oil. His discovery paved the way for a new kind of candle, which burned cleaner than paraffin, was less costly to produce than many alternatives and would burn for longer.
But have you ever wondered where soy wax comes from? Or how wax is created out of soybeans?
Refining Beans to Wax
Soy wax comes from soybean oil. In order to produce wax, harvested soybeans are:
- Cleaned
- Cracked
- De-hulled
- Rolled into
- Flakes
Next, the oil is extracted from these flakes using solvents or mechanical pressing and hydrogenated.
Hydrogenating oil is the process of converting some of its fatty acids from unsaturated to saturated, which raises the melting point of the oil to where it is a solid at room temperature. The end result is soy wax!
About 60 kg of soybeans produces 10 kg of soybean oil.
Some candle manufacturers add paraffin or stearic acid to the soy wax for various reasons.
Our candles are 100% soy wax because we pride ourselves on providing the purest wax possible.
Soy Wax in a nutshell
Soy wax is derived from natural vegetable whereas paraffin on the other side is a gasoline by-product. This means that soy wax is actually not an inert product while paraffin is.
Soy wax will keep hardening and crystallising throughout its life. Most of the hardening happens in the first 2 weeks but, as its crystal structure never stops forming, the wax keeps hardening and crystallising over time.
Soy wax is 100% biodegradable and cleans easily with soap and water. Try to clean some paraffin wax spills ... you are in for a good time!
This is what we love about soy wax: it is mainly a very enriched natural oil!
Soy wax releases fragrances much easier than paraffin due to its unique crystal structure. Being a natural product, once it starts to melt, the diffusion of fragrances and essential oils will be much more efficient than when using a paraffin wax.
But...How to recognise Soy wax from Paraffin Wax?
The signature of pure soy wax is something called ... Frosting!
This is the easiest and fastest way to recognise a 100% pure soy wax candle. We talk about it in our next article. Click here to read it!