How You Can Know Your Candle is Pure Soy

ז׳ בחשון תשע"ב
Phasma Priscus 10

How you can know that your candles are made with 100% soy ... frosting.

With time, candles made with 100% soy will form tiny, white, frosted-looking crystals on the top of the wax and/or on the sides of the jar. It looks very similar to the white frosted look that sometimes appears on chocolate. Most people don't mind frosting and many even like the effect. In fact, many customers have said they look for frosting as a sign that the candle is indeed made with soy and not paraffin. You can remove this frosting by buffing the candle lightly with hosiery.

Some soy candle manufacturers add paraffin wax (called a parasoy blend) to their candles to eliminate frosting. The soy used in candles crafted at Witchcrafts Artisan Alchemy™ IS NOT one of these soy-paraffin blended waxes. My shoppe's soy manufacturer is committed to providing you with paraffin-free candles and therefore does not add paraffin to the certified kosher pure soy wax it manufactures specifically as an eco-friendly alternative to paraffin and soy-paraffin wax blends. My pure soy wax is a top-of-line quality eco-friendly wax, and because of this, is more expensive than other waxes (which is why my candles cost a bit more than the candles from other shoppes who use paraffin or soy-paraffin blends).

While I have experimented with my dyes, fragrance oils, and pour temperatures to keep frosting to a minimum, some frosting is nevertheless to be expected with all pure soy candles.

Pure soy candles whose surfaces are glossed with candle gloss don't form frosting as quickly and as easily as pure soy candles whose surfaces are not glossed. I do offer a few glossed candles at my shoppe, but most candles are not glossed and do form frosting with time.

So, when you see the frosting form, you can be assured that your candle is made with 100% pure soy wax and NOT with a soy-paraffin wax blend.

BBC Reports Frequent Burning of Paraffin Candles Linked to Increased Cancer Risk

כ׳ בתשרי תשע"ב
Blodlessing 22

BBC reports that frequent burning of paraffin candles over time linked to cancer:

To investigate candle emissions, the researchers burned a range of candles in the laboratory and collected the mixture of substances they gave off.

Paraffin-based candles produced "clear sharp peaks" for many chemicals, mainly because burning candles does not produce high enough temperatures to combust hazardous molecules such as toluene and benzene.

The scientists suggested switching to candles made from beeswax or soy, which did not release significant levels of the chemicals.

Researcher Amid Hamidi said people who frequently used candles, for instance to help them relax in the bath or provide the right ambience for dinner, [or frequency in a sacred space or temple room - added by me] were most at risk.

He told the American Chemical Society in Washington: "An occasional paraffin candle and its emissions will not likely affect you.

"But lighting many paraffin candles every day for years or lighting them frequently in an un-ventilated bathroom around a tub, for example, may cause problems."

Read more at link above.

Soy Blessed by Wildflower Fairies

ט״ו באב תשע"א
Lughnasadh 17

Our pro-Paraffin Etsy chandler has decided to return to splash more sand in the sandbox after all, posting an article on genetically modified soybeans engineered to resist herbicides and pesticides (such as Roundup). Beyond the fact that the soy wax used in candles at WITCHCRAFTS Artisan Alchemy™ is certified organic and not grown with the use of herbicides and pesticides (such that using a genetically modified soybean would be required to resist "Roundup" chemicals), the argument in her article indicates that the only side effect of using such a soybean is that the weeds (like wildflowers) in the area themselves evolve and become more resistant to herbicides and pesticides.

In other words, genetically modified soybeans cause wildflowers to evolve. The wildflower fairies are blessing the use genetically modified soybeans as I write!

Genetic Selection of Species for Survival

ט״ו באב תשע"א
Lughnasadh 17

According to our pro-paraffin Etsy chandler, we shouldn't use soy wax because soybean seeds may be genetically modified to resist herbicides and pesticides - following this line of thinking, diabetics shouldn't use humulin insulin to control their diabetes either as it is a genetically modified human insulin medicine demonstrated by research to be much safer to use than natural insulins derived from pigs.

I am a biochemist and have personally worked, not only in a pharmaceutical research laboratory (for the Pharmacia-Upjohn Company in Kalamazoo Michigan and in research laboratories at the University of Illinois), but with microbiological genetic reconstructions and genetic engineering. Not all genetic engineering is bad, wildflowers are weeds, and the evolutionary natural selection of homo sapiens over the neanderthals is nothing more than nature's use of genetic engineering to select species for survival able to resist adverse natural conditions. All of nature is on a path of evolutionary growth - certainly, the evolution of one species leads to the evolution of other species, be they animals or plants.

Nevertheless, growers of certified organic soybeans (from which the soy wax used at Witchcrafts is made) don't need to use a genetically engineered soybean resistant to herbicides and pesticides as these soybeans aren't grown using herbicides and pesticides!