About the Candles

These handmade candles are made from pure all-natural soy wax for a clean burn and great scent throw. Unlike paraffin, a petroleum product, soy is a renewable resource. The wicks are 100% all natural cotton with cotton cores.

Don’t let their small size fool you—there is a lot of fragrance in each little tin! Each tin is 6.0 oz by volume and contains approximately 4.0 oz of soy wax by weight. I do not skimp on the amount of fragrance either! People often remark that they just opened the candle tin lid and the scent filled the room without lighting the candle.

I strive to use candle fragrances that are best described as “earthy”, “woodsy”, or “natural”

How is soy different than paraffin?
There are many advantages to using Vegetable Wax compared to other alternative fuels:

1. Soy wax is derived from vegetables, many grown by farmers in the USA.
2. It is a renewable resource that can be replenished at a faster rate than many alternative fuels.
3. Attractive alternative to petroleum products, as oil prices become seemingly unpredictable.
4. Cleaner burn with less smoke and fumes.
5. Lower melt point so less chance of burns from spilled wax.
6. Easier clean-up if spilled.
7. Overall better for you and the envirnment
8. Slower buring...they last longer!

Paraffin Wax is derived from fossil fuels found deep within the earth. After refining processes take place, the bi-product you will have is paraffin wax. Although paraffin wax has been commonly used in candles, many consumers are looking for vegetable based alternatives.

One brief, shining history of candles

300 - 1 BC: Qin Shi Huang (259–210 BC) was the first emperor of the Chinese Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). His mausoleum, which was rediscovered in the 1990s, twenty-two miles east of Xi'an, contained candles made from whale fat. The word zhú in Chinese originally meant torch. Warring States Period (403–221 BC) contains some excavated bronzewares from that era featuring a pricket thought to hold a candle. The Han Dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD) Jizhupian dictionary of about 40 BC hints at candles being made of beeswax, while the Book of Jin (compiled in 648) covering the Jin Dynasty (265–420) makes a solid reference to the beeswax candle in regards to its use by the statesman Zhou Yi (d. 322). An excavated earthenware bowl from the 4th century AD, located at the Luoyang Museum, has a hollowed socket where traces of wax were found. Generally these Chinese candles were molded in paper tubes, using rolled rice paper for the wick, and wax from an indigenous insect that was combined with seeds.

Japanese candles were made from wax extracted from squirrels.
Wax from boiling cinnamon was used for temple candles in India.

1 AD - 1500 AD: There is a fish called the eulachon or "candlefish", a type of smelt which is found from Oregon to Alaska. During the 1st century AD, indigenous people from this region used oil from this fish for illumination. A simple candle could be made by putting the dried fish on a forked stick and then lighting it. The first candles to appear in Europe were made by nomadic tribes in the late Roman era, but are thought to have been in use much earlier in the colder climates of Northern Europe, where olive oil was scarce.

These early candles were made from tallow, or animal fat. The tallow was put into the melting pot, then poured into molds made of bronze. A trough underneath would catch the excess wax and return it to the melting pot. For the wick, a cord, usually made from the pith of rushes, was suspended from a horizontal rod over the mold when the tallow was poured in. After the fall of the Roman Empire, when olive oil became increasingly scarce, and therefore expensive, the use of tallow candles spread across Western Europe. Later wax candles made from various plant extracts replaced tallow as the preferred source of illumination.

In Africa and the Middle East, candle-making remained relatively unknown due to the availability of olive oil for burning in lamps.

Yak butter was used for candles in Tibet.

19th Century to present

Despite advances in candle making, the candle industry was devastated soon after by the distillation of kerosene (a fuel used in lamps) and the 1879 invention of the Light bulb. From this point, candles became more of a decorative item.

In 1829, William Wilson of Price's Candles invested in 1,000 acres of coconut plantation in Sri Lanka. His aim was to make candles from coconut oil. Later he tried palm oil from palm trees. An accidental discovery swept all his ambitions aside when his brother George Wilson distilled the first petroleum oil in 1854. In 1919, Lever Brothers (soap makers too!) purchased Price's Candles and in 1922, a joint-owned company called "Candles Ltd" was created. By 1991, the last remaining owner of "Candles Ltd" was Shell Oil Company, who sold off the candle-making part of business.

As candles started to wane as the major light source due to the introduction of the light bulb, they became a more decorative item. Candles were suddenly available in a broad array of sizes, shapes and colors, and consumer interest in scented candles began to escalate. During the 1990s, new types of candle waxes were being developed due to an unusually high demand for candles. In the U.S., agricultural chemists began to develop soybean wax which was a softer and slower burning wax than paraffin. On the other side of the globe, efforts were underway to develop palm wax for use in candles.

* Source: Wikipedia

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