Bee Wary?

Many will say, "Well, I only burn paraffin because beeswax is too expensive." The truth of the matter is, the professional burn of pure beeswax is far less expensive then paraffin. Pure beeswax burns up to 20 times longer and costs an average of ten cents an hour to burn, where all paraffin costs upward of a buck and a quarter an hour to burn, along with the fact that you often end up throwing away half to two thirds of your paraffin candle because the wick drowns out as it tunnels down the middle.

Properly made cappings candles are a world apart from all paraffin, and SOY AND VEG CANDLES, no matter what analysis one congers up to try and not have to admit to the facts. Without any question of doubt, know for a fact, that paraffin and all affiliated emulsions made from it, are used to retard lots of things, including the spoil-age of your produce and in your dairy food and there are warehouses filled with packaged dried goods. Since they started to use the crap coming from the tailpipe of the whole refinery process as food stabilizers, there is no more insurance pay-offs on food spoilage.

This grayish-blackish ooze commin' from the petroleum process is chemically steam bleached which creates harmful dioxins in paraffin. This white ooze is then solidified with acrolyn, (a proven carcinogen) to create the solid white paraffin blocks everyone is accustomed to. The scents added to paraffin are not natural flower juices, ie. they don't squeeze roses or vanilla pods which sells upwards of 10 to 14 dollars a pod, into paraffin candles. The artificial vanilla scent used in all commercial vanilla flavored foods and candles is actually ‘pyperonal,' which was originally created to be a lice killer. The majority of all candle scents are toxic synthetic scents and when these chemical scents are burned, they create fluorocarbons, which destroy the cells in your sinuses and olfactory nerves. Compounding this with the variety of other even more deadly chemicals candle makers use to make paraffin burn a ‘little' longer, or look a little prettier, yet, you have a very toxic, carcinogenic product.

There are a lot of ‘fake' beeswax candles out there which are mostly paraffin, having as little as 10% beeswax in them, yet legally, these candles are allowed to be sold as 100% beeswax to mislead people. They are a little cheaper to buy then ours, yet they are noticeably more expensive then paraffin because they have ‘some' beeswax in them. To the novice, they may look the same, but if they smell perfumed or scented or have a hard, shiny surface, they are mostly paraffin, so please bee wary of what you buy.

SOY AND VEG CANDLES

In the past few years, Tawlia has had several petroleum companies call and offer her veg and or soy candle wax by the ton. ii,,, petroleum companies,,, could you imagine. So she asked for samples to be sent along with the appropriate information. Upon receiving them Tawlia calls Iilah into her office to check them out and as soon as Iilah walks into the room, the first thing he says is,"What's that terrible smell?" Tawlia informs him that these are the veg candle samples and in all truth, they really did stink. So they studied the flame, and yes, there was some soot,, and they didn't burn much longer than paraffin, yet the cost factor, ton for ton, was very inviting, and yes, if it really was supposed to be non-toxic, maybe a less expensive, secondary candle line would help pay the bills.

Iilah asks Tawlia to call up these companies and find out what they solidified the veg wax with. Now it really gets interesting. Two of these companies refused to comment on their solidifying process, stating it was a patented process. With the third, Tawlia acted like they were interested to purchase veg wax by the ton and as she went on with how pleased she was with how the samples burnt, she then asked if what they used to solidify their veg wax was the same product used to solidify their paraffin wax, stating she was afraid they wouldn't be shippable, if it wasn't. Well, iilah's assumptions were right. This company confirmed that both products were solidified with variations of acrolyn, which is a deadly carcinogen in itself.

I hate to burst a lot of people's bubbles', but it's the same in the beeswax business. In fact, Canadian law states that if a candle has 10% beeswax in it, it can be sold as a ‘pure beeswax candle'. This is where many people have gotten a wrong impression of the value of beeswax because they spent a lot of money for "an expensive beeswax candle" (which was only 10% - 60% pure) and it naturally burned almost as fast as a paraffin candle. Is there any wonder why?

Most conventional, 100% pure beeswax candles are made using most, if not all, of the different parts of the bee comb; the cappings, the comb and the foundation. The beekeeper thinks his wax is pure, and sells it as so, and swears by it, yet he doesn't realize that the bee comb foundations being stamped out commercially by these new machines, has up to 70 % paraffin in them, and now, even a lot of the foundation sheets are made with a plastic core which is designed to melt at low temperature. When this wax is incorporated into those cheaper, generically yellow, commercial beeswax candles sold to churches and health food stores, etc., you are not getting pure beeswax. These candles do not produce little to no negative ions nor do they burn with golden halos.