Interior Designer Uses Beeswax to Improve Wooden Crafts

Alex Gakwaya with civil engineering background is a craftsman and interior designer. Since he found his business approximately two years ago, he and his team work hand-in-hand to handcraft wood designs including wooden furniture and utensils. 

He mentioned that beeswax and Tung oil are the environmentally friendly materials that he applies to the wooden items as a beautiful and protective finish. These materials are non-toxic and they do not put people's health at risk. Beeswax particularly is effective in prevention of skin infections. Therefore, his products bring higher value to his customers as they are not only esthetic but more importantly they are reliable to use in daily lives.    

The Best Wax for Cosmetic Formula

Beeswax is a fatty substance secreted by the four pairs of wax glands on the worker bees abdomen. The main components of beeswax are esters formed by higher fatty acids and higher monohydric alcohols. It is essential for the bees in building their hexagonal honeycomb.

You may noticed that there are generally yellow beeswax and white beeswax. In fact, yellow beeswax is firstly produced after extraction, melting, filtering, etc. The yellow beeswax turns to white beeswax after processed by scouring, decoloring, etc.  

Due to its high medicinal value, Chinese treat beeswax as one of the traditional medicinal ingredients and use it both externally and internally. In modern living, beeswax is not merely used extensively in the food and pharmaceutical industries but cosmetic industry calls for high demand in beeswax as well.

100% USA Pure Beeswax 1lb Block 

In cosmetic formulations, beeswax acts as emollient, stabilizer, plasticizer, gelling, barrier or film-forming agent. It does not have any toxicity, safe in cosmetics application and allow the finished products stored for a long time, so beeswax is widely used in cosmetics.

The formulated cosmetics will not evaporate rapidly after applied on the skin because beeswax has a strong tolerance to temperature. I personally experienced and believe that beeswax works very well in moisturizing skin as it can lock the water to nourish the cells. It also protects the skin surface from environmental factors. Its quality becomes the common ingredient in creams and lip balm. In lipsticks making, beeswax not only play a role in moisturizing, but it also has functions in fixing color, lasting color protection, etc.  

Regularly apply cosmetics made of beeswax on skin will help to soften skin keratin, rebuild cells and create elastic skin. On the skin surface, beeswax helps to form a protective barrier which is especially needed in cold weather or bad weather. The barrier has characteristics such as anti-allergic, antibacterial and anti-oxidant which allow it works as a decent skin protection from irritation.

Since beeswax carries extreme benefits to cosmetics, I must vote it as the best wax ever!

Beeswax Dripping

Never before I experienced cooling and solidifying beeswax by dripping them in water during filtering process. In fact, my usual procedure of cleaning or filtering beeswax is to pour them over a filter bag into containers after heating.

One fine day, I tried with a small batch of my beeswax as I would like to find out how the beeswax would be. I prepared a medium size of rectangle container filled with water. After the beeswax melted thoroughly, I started to pour them carefully into the filter bag just positioned above the container. The beeswax dripped drop by drop swiftly and I slightly moved the filter bag randomly in order to minimize overlapping of beeswax drops.

I could see the beeswax drops became solid almost instantly once fall into the water. After the last drop, I drained the water inside the container and then I got a piece of clean and solid beeswax drops as photos show below. 

Close-up of  dense beeswax drops

I broke them into smaller pieces at the end and now they look like few pieces of  crispy fried chicken skin to me. Oh I'm hungry! 

An Aesthetic Beehive Candle Made of Beeswax from Texas

Needless to say, there are so many good points about beeswax candles which you could easily search from online sites or at this blog. What I would like to highlight about this particular candle is that it is beautifully molded and made with high grade of 100% pure beeswax originally from Texas beekeepers. It means that the raw material is not adulterated and is not imported from unknown source! Without mixing with any chemicals or bleach, the domestic beeswax is gently filtered from impurities, even down to the size of a grain of pollen. The goal is to ensure the beeswax is really clean and up to the standard to make long-lasting candles that burn well. 

The Beeswax Co. Beehive Candle 100% Pure Natural Texas Beeswax 

This paraffin, lead and toxin free beeswax candle in beehive design has a dimension around 3.75''(Dia) x 5''(H) (based on the size of mold) and it can burn approximately 60 hours. Also be noted that the wick of this beehive candle is 100% cotton wick and artificial scents or toxic colorants never added to this beautiful candle.

Check out at https://amzn.to/2Zbdz2n

The Beeswax Co. Beehive Candle 100% Pure Natural Texas Beeswax

Beeswax Wraps: A Great Alternative to Plastic Wraps?

Yes! Beeswax wrap which is made of 100% cotton cloth and coated with beeswax is a great option to wrap your food in the kitchen. It offers an excellent way to replace plastic bag or cling film, since beeswax food wrap neither contain unsafe chemicals nor toxic.

Except hot food and raw meat, beeswax wraps are suitable to cover food as well as keep fruits and vegetables fresh. Cut lemon, avocado, carrots, melon, herbs, cheese, sandwich, bread, nuts are some of the examples that you could wrap with this cloth wrap. It could be used as a bottle or glass cover and also a bowl or plate cover of leftover food.

Unlike cling film, beeswax wraps are washable and can be reused up to couple of months or until the food wrap is no longer seal tightly, whereas cling film is sort of disposable food wrapping idea and we should not throw away so much plastic trash. 

Before looking for any plastic based product for food storage or packaging, think for seconds about the shortcomings of using plastic. Each single piece of plastic rubbish thrown by us every day is messing up the Earth and we must be responsible for a great amount of plastic waste.

In fact, the chemicals resided in plastic cause us serious health issues such as cancer and many marine creatures were killed by the plastic waste. Other than switching from plastic food wraps to beeswax wraps, there are many other plastic-free approaches we could do for the sake of our humans' health and the lives of other animals.

Three Fundamental Strategies to Avoid Hazardous Candles

One: Preclude fragrance
Fragrance = Red flag!
Any combination of thousands of chemicals may invent artificial scents and most scents are unhealthy for inhalation as they are made of petrochemicals or undisclosed ingredients which are not proven safe.

Two: Examine the wick
Candle wicks are commonly made of braided cotton. However, consumers should be aware of candles made of lead-cored wicks. The fact that burning candles with lead-cored wicks could bring a lead poisoning effect to young children was confirmed by the CPSC (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission). Consumers are advised to ask the retailer for details about the wick used in their candles if they wish to find out whether the metal-cored wick contains lead or not.

Three: Inspect the wax
Vegetable, animal and insect-based wax as well as paraffin (petroleum byproduct) could be sources of waxed candles. Some candle manufacturers may claim single ingredient only in their candles but in fact their candle wax may not be 100 percent and mixed with other unknown ingredients in production. These ingredients may include paraffin, colour or fragrance which lead to asthma, cancer and allergies. Therefore, it's wise to choose waxed candles without scents, pigments and dyes.


Checklist of Choosing the Most Wholesome Candles 
Wax: 100% pure beeswax with its original colour and scent
Wick: 100% cotton without lead
Fragrance: No fragrance

Let's Burn 100% Natural & Pure Beeswax Candles