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

Burning Test of Hand-rolled Beeswax Beehive Candle

Dimension: 10 cm H & 6.5 cm Dia @ base

Wick no.: #2

Burn time: 13 hours

Attempt of Hand-rolling A Honeycomb Beehive Candle

I tried to figure out a moment on how to fully utilize a full beeswax sheet measured 20 cm x 42 cm to make a beehive shaped candle by using hand-rolled method. After some calculations, I came out with an idea to make it with 10 cm height by measuring 10 cm, 5 cm, 5 cm, 0 cm on the left and 7.5 cm, 7.5 cm, 2.5 cm, 2.5 cm on the right then cut the honeycomb sheet diagonally into 4 pieces just like below.

In fact, I am not sure yet how exactly the candle will look like when it is done but I start to roll anyway.

The largest piece was rolled first

After two bigger pieces were rolled

Left the last smallest piece

Done!

Here it is... my beehive candle measuring 10 cm tall by 6.5 cm diameter at base. Next blog, I am going to share the testing on burning this candle, so please stay tune!

A Visit to 'Bear Bile Bee Farm' in Paju, South Korea

Last Sunday, Mr. Park brought me to visit a bee farm (웅담양봉원) in Paju. Paju is one of the cities located in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. From Seoul, it takes about 1.5 hours drive to there. The farm is at countryside, so we took longer time to reach our destination.

We were welcome by the beekeeper (nickname: Honey Bear) once we arrived. After he directed us to sit under canopy besides his house, he treated us honeycomb and lemon water with honey produced by his bees. A few of bees also flew towards us; not to welcome us I know but they were attracted by the smell of honeycomb and honey from the cups. 

yummy honeycomb

Honey Bear showed us his beehives which positioned under the canopy too, he then removed a frame of capped honeycomb from the beehive and explained in Korean pertaining beeswax and honey. Well, I speak no Korean so Mr Park became my translator at the site.

beehives

frames of honeycomb in the beehive

the beekeeper - Honey Bear

Later, Honey Bear took out from refrigerator some natural skincare products made by him using beeswax, propolis...etc. I tested out his lotion. I would say his is better than my version. It is moist enough and the smell of coconut oil is not overwhelming.

He has 5 sorts of honey; from the lightest golden yellow to darkest dark brown. All sorts of honey are produced by honey bees who suck nectar from different kinds of flora such as acacia, chestnut & strawberry tree. We chose to buy strawberry honey after we did a tasting on all types.

Before leaving, he gifted us some self-made skincare products as souvenirs. I'm enjoying!

organic honey & souvenirs brought from the bee farm

Taper, Votive or Pillar?

Having long vacation in South Korea now, but i know I miss candle making. My hands are itchy and rolling some candles definitely is a great idea to solve.

When rubber cutting board, utility knife, ruler together with beeswax sheets and wicks are ready on the table, I started without further delay.

A pair of taper candles was firstly made. This time I made them in approximately 16 cm height x 2.5 cm diameter and each burns around 4 hours.

Next, I used half of a beeswax sheet and rolled a votive candle. The size is approximately 5 cm height x 5 cm diameter.

I discontinued the burning when it reached about 5 hours. It has few more hours to go on next burnnig.

The last candle I made is a pillar. It is 10 cm height x 5 cm diameter. I don't feel like burn it yet and it will accompany little longer I guess ;)