How difficult should it be to make your own wax?
Yes, we asked ourselves that question back in 2018 when we started our fragrance journey. Our first six months in the business consisted of trying to gather as much knowledge and information as we could. We started our journey with a soy and rapeseed, a wax widely used in the scented candle industry. We filled up with more knowledge and quite quickly we understood that soy was not as environmentally friendly as we had initially thought.
In 2019, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) came out with a report that showed that soy was now worse than palm oil when it came to deforestation of the Amazon. The report shows how the soy industry has the biggest negative impact on our climate when it comes to agriculture. We then found a new wax that consisted of canola and sustainably grown coconut. We found out where the coconut came from, which turned out to be the Philippines. The coconut was sustainably grown (a plus) and had quite a few certificates.
But we could never get over the fact that the coke came from the Philippines. A long way for wax to be transported completely unnecessarily. So in 2020 we started experimenting with only canola wax instead. How difficult will it be, we thought again. We tried our hand at rapeseed wax, which turned out to be considerably more difficult than we had first anticipated.
Those of you who have followed our journey also know that 2020 was the year when our company took off . We had to put the wax experiments on the shelf and focus on making our products. But in the back of my head was the idea and thoughts about an even more sustainable wax. The dream of being able to make a wax ourselves had certainly not left us.
Present and verdant future
Spring 2023 we fast forward to now. We are standing in a new studio out in green Alnarp surrounded by rapeseed fields. It's like nature is screaming at us - turn me into wax. We turned to our supplier of wax and asked for help in producing a new wax. After many ups and downs, we stand here today with a new wax that we mix ourselves here in our studio in Alnarp. It is thanks to innovation and experimentation that we can proudly present our new rapeseed wax.
Our new wax consists of 100% Swedish rapeseed wax
Wax consists of hydrogenated oil, a process that solidifies the oil. That process is managed by our supplier. We then mix different hydrogenated Swedish rapeseed waxes to produce a candle wax. This process is done by hand here in our studio in our large wax melters. It has taken us over a year to find the right recipe, the right temperatures and the right manufacturing method.
Not all that glitters is gold
But something happens that we were not prepared for. When you use natural wax and do not add any additives, it becomes much more difficult to make candles. This therefore led to several of our fragrances not behaving as they had before. Maison, which had been a great favourite, had suddenly stopped smelling. It doesn't matter how we mixed the scent with the wax, we didn't get the scent profile that so many had come to love.
Black Pomegranate was perhaps the hardest scent to come to the realization that this doesn't work. It is a scent that has been with us since 2019 and that has a personal meaning as it is linked to a scent memory . But in combination with our new wax, the scent was unbearable, it was just like some scent notes were amplified while some notes completely disappeared. We had to ask ourselves the question of conscience, what comes first ⎯ the environment or our scent memories?
New chapter with new opportunities
On the other hand, our new wax has given us the possibilities for a completely new product. Anyone reading this who makes candles themselves knows how difficult it is with natural wax and getting it to stick to glass. It requires techniques that are both time-consuming and inefficient, if you want to create scented candles that look nice and don't add any additives. But for our new product refill puck, this is rather an advantage. You can read more about our new refill pucks here .
Advantages of Skåne canola wax
The first and perhaps most obvious advantage is that the transport route has become significantly shorter. No one can have missed how the effects of transport in particular affect our climate. The other benefits are exactly the same as we had before with our other canola. You get a wax that is relatively hard, which means that the burning time is extended, which in turn leads to products that last a long time. You also get a wax that, unlike paraffin, does not release substances when burned.
As of April 1, 2024, all newly manufactured scented candles from us are based on our new Scanian rapax. We hope you'll love it as much as we do.
Sources:
https://www.transportenvironment.org/challenges/ships/greenhouse-gases
