Natural soy wax comes with all kinds of unique challenges. Most would assume that making a candle is as simple as melt and pour, but it is so much more then that!
The first issue we came across was frosting. Frosting is when the wax forms a strange crystalline structure. This appears as a white, frosty substance on the wax, hence the name. Although frosting does not affect the product, it certainly is not very attractive. We learned over time how to take care of frosting in our specific climate. Soy wax behaves differently based on temperature and humidity, so unfortunately, there is not a simple formula that works for everyone. Instead, you are left to experiment over and over again until you are satisfied with your results!
Once frosting was taken care of, we thought we were home free. A lot of the other concerns most people face, we managed to dodge. Or, so we thought. After a few months of being open, we had began to add more unique fragrances to our lineup. This is when we first came across sweating. Sweating is when the fragrance oil does not completely bond with the wax and instead pulls away and ends up as small droplets on top of the surface of the candle. Now in our case, it went beyond that and instead, we were left with a huge lake on the top of our candles. We were completely shocked! Of course, it happened right when we were getting comfortable with our formula thinking everything is perfect. It turns out, not all fragrance oils work with all wax types. Now again, this can be climate specific or simply just wax specific. We tried lowering the fragrance load significantly, however, this made no change. We were ultimately left with having to keep these candles for ourselves and our family. Thankfully, sweating does not affect the function or performance of the candle, but again, it is not very pleasant to look at. Now, sweating is not always an issue with soy wax. We have seen this in the past with simply a large change in temperature. One instance was when we moved a candle from our basement to our kitchen windowsill. This change in temperature caused the wax to warm up and formed little micro drops of oil on the surface of the wax. This is nothing to be concerned about. We simply moved the candle out of the window and the problem fixed itself.
Now that we realized we can never truly get comfortable with our wax, we came across our latest issue- Tunneling. Now typically tunneling is simply caused by an incorrect wick size. This is another common misconception. Many do not realize that there are hundreds of wicks to choose from many from different companies and they all serve a purpose. Some of these are strictly for pillar candles while others work best in soy wax. Our wicks are a completely natural paper core wick with braided cotton exterior which is then dipped in vegetable wax. Now, the issue was not related to the wick size, but instead was actually caused by invisible pockets of air within the solidified wax. Once the candle was lit, these air pockets opened up and caused all of the melted wax to fall into the air pockets. This caused a domino affect where the air pockets kept opening up and filling so fast, that the wick was actually burning much faster then normal causing a one inch hole to tunnel its way into the candle. As it turns out, this is another very common issue found in soy wax candles. Simply put, uneven cooling temperatures can cause air pockets. This is more common in tall candles compared to short. All of our previous candles had all been shorter and this was our first attempt at a long lasting, tall candle. Now the fix for this was to turn around and destroy the candles we had made. It sounds crazy, but we poked a ton of holes into the candle to reveal these air pockets. Once done, we then used a heat gun to warm the surface of the candle to allow wax to fill in all of these voids. Once cooled, the candles are then ready to be sold after curing for 2 weeks.
As you can see, natural waxes are temperamental. These are sacrifices we make as we believe it is important to know what we are breathing in. Candles can actually cause harm to your respiratory system when they are made with cheap ingredients as they are constantly releasing particles into the air as they burn. Things like paraffin have a much higher risk of causing harm. Although there are days that we are tempted to start using paraffin simply because it would sure make our life easier.
Watch labels, you will find that some of your current favourite brands of candles may appear like they are made from all natural wax, but if you look closely, they will often say something like "Soy wax blend". What companies are now doing, is they mix paraffin with soy wax in order to claim that they are made with soy wax to come across as a safer, more natural candle. The reality is, this is not the case. These are the same classic marketing skills used by makers of spray cheese or other obviously artificial foods. By simply adding a natural ingredient, you can now claim "Made with real _______.". We try to be as transparent as possible. Of course, we also care about keeping our recipes a secret as they are considered a proprietary trademark protected by law. How else are we going to remain the number one candle company? ;)