The Benefits of Soy Candles
As a small business, we get a lot of question when it comes to how or why we do things the way we do. Why is it called “Frostbeard,” why are the candles all book-themed, why do you use soy wax instead of beeswax? We love answering our follower’s questions and connecting further with our loyal customers. So today, we’re going to do a deep dive on the how and the why behind our signature book inspired soy candles.
When Tom and Roxie, our co-founders, started Frostbeard they had three goals in mind:
- Create awesome things that need to exist
- Encourage people to read, because reading is cool
- Promote education and literacy through community outreach
It was within these founding principles that we started to wonder; if we’re putting so much focus on making our community better, shouldn’t we also focus on improving our planet as well? We’ve always been environmentally-conscious artists, so putting steps in place to ensure that we’re being as eco-friendly as possible was a no-brainer.
Inside Soy Wax and Its Many Benefits
So what is soy wax? Soy wax, unsurprisingly, comes from soybeans. The wax itself is made specifically from the oil of soybeans. Soybeans don’t naturally secrete oil, to reach this valuable resource, you have to harvest, clean, crack, and de-hull the beans before crushing them into flakes where you can then collect the bean’s natural oils.
Once the oil has been harvested, it’s put through a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation is the chemical reaction of hydrogen with another substance which in this case is the oil from soybeans. Hydrogenation allows for the final mixture of soybean oil and water to have a lower melting point; between 49 to 82 degrees Celsius. This process lets the final soy wax melt faster than other waxes such as paraffin wax, but remain solid at room temperature.
The low melting point of soy wax is ideal for candle making. It allows us to keep large amounts of wax in liquid form in our 80-quart wax melter (named Gandalf). We keep our wax happy at 170 degrees until we’re ready to pour it into small stainless steel pouring pitchers, where we add our scents and colors and complete our candle making process.
Soy wax is a renewable resource, meaning we can grow as much as we need. Soybeans are a super important crop for our farms - they bring nitrogen into the soil for other plants to grow. Plus, the leftover husks that result from the crushing process can be fed to livestock. We source all of our soy wax from local Midwest suppliers, so those resources are going right back to the place we call home, helping us to reduce our carbon footprint. Outside of being a sustainable, and renewable resource, soy wax has many advantages.
One of our favorite benefits of soy wax is its ability to burn cleanly and slowly. There’s nothing worse than a smoky, fast burning candle. Our soy wax book themed 8-ounce candles typically burn for at least 40 hours! For safety, we recommend only burning your soy candles for 2-3 hour intervals and discontinuing use when only about ½“ of wax remains at the bottom of the jar.
Continuing on with benefits, soy wax is both biodegradable and water-soluble; so should an accident ever occur, cleanup is a breeze. Another tip: keep those wicks trimmed up and soy candles will burn with hardly any soot. Since soy candles are made from soybeans and not carbon or petroleum-based fuels, they won’t be giving off any petro-carbon soot. Other types of wax like paraffin tend to give off this black, sooty residue as a result of the burning of carbon-containing fuels.
Eco-Friendly, Vegan Soy Candles
Our book themed candles are made from 100% soy wax, but that’s not where the eco-friendly theme ends. You already know that our candles are made from soy wax, but did you know that we continue to use green materials and methods throughout the candle making process? Our book themed candles are free of any animal byproducts or fillers, making them biodegradable and vegan. We complete the candle itself with a lead-free cotton wick and hand-selected dye chips and fragrance oils. Our fragrance oils can range from dragon’s blood to aged paper scents and are specifically designed for candles.
The glass jars and tins that our candles come in are also green. Well, technically they’re clear or black, but you know what we mean. Both the aluminum tins and glass jars, regardless of their size, are recyclable. In fact, many of our customers love reusing their Frostbeard jars for fun bookish DIY projects.
See Why Soy Wax Is Best with Frostbeard
At Frostbeard, one of our unofficial mottos is “quality materials, responsibly made.” We take pride in creating book themed soy candles that are not only imaginative and literary, but good for the planet as well. Outside of being environmentally friendly, using soy wax allows for our candles to be used longer, which is always our goal! We want you to enjoy every blissful moment with your book themed soy candles.
If you have any questions about how we make our soy candles or any other candle-related inquiries, don’t hesitate to send us a message! We’d love to hear from you.
