Soy Candles

Essential oils have been used by the Greeks, Romans, and Ancient Egyptians for bathing, body massages, and for embalming the dead.  It did not have a word then to describe the practice but today we do.  In 1930 a French chemist by the name of Rene Maurice Gattefosse coined the term for the therapeutic use of essential oils as aromatherapy.  He had burnt his hand and applied lavender oil to it and realized there was no scar left.  This began his study of the use of essential oils for their psycho-therapeutic benefits.  In World War II, French army surgeon Dr. Jean Valnet used essential oils as antiseptics.  Then later Madame Marguerite Maury began prescribing essential oils as remedies for her patients, elevating aromatherapy as a holistic therapy.  Also credited to her is the modern day usage of essential oils in massage.

Today you can have your own personal body massage with essential oils in the form of a gourmet body massage soy candle.  This new form of a soy candle will heighten your love life.  Each candle has enough for 10 full body massages.  You can choose from over 50 fragrances. 

The nutrient rich oils contained in the gourmet body massage soy candle will rejuvenate, soften and hydrate the skin leaving it deeply moisturized.  Along with improving skin resiliency and texture, the massage soy oil blend will leave your skin luxurious, silky smooth and delicately scented.

The gourmet body massage soy candles are environmentally friendly and made using only the finest ingredients available: cosmetic, grade soy oil; grape-seed oil; Shea butter; mango butter; jojoba oil; vitamin E; and beeswax.  Candles from the spa collection include only 100 % pure essential oils to achieve a true aromatherapy experience.  The other collections are produced using only skin safe fragrance oils.

Why not give your loved one and yourself a true aromatherapy experience in the comfort of your own home.  Enjoy and relax with a gourmet body massage soy candle!

These days it seems that the population is becoming much more heath and environmentally conscious.  This is called going green.  The traditional candles that most people burn are made with paraffin wax.  As we now know, paraffin wax has many dangers associated with them.  They are made from petroleum by-products and emit several know toxins that are dangerous to your health.  They become so by contaminating the air you breath in your home, as well as leaving their remains in what is called soot, on your home’s interior structure and furnishings.

Soy wax, made from soybeans, has become a favorite alternative to the paraffin wax candles.  It is safe to breath, is safe for the environment, doesn’t leave the soot build up, and melts at a lower temperature.  It is a renewable resource as well.  You can put your finger into the heated soy wax from your candle and it will only feel warm to touch.  It won’t burn like paraffin candles.  Some have found it to be a good source as a hand lotion, having the benefit of the scent of the candle you were burning. 

As we become more environmentally aware and health conscious and more of us are going green, we give up our old ways and with that make sacrifices.  Choosing to use soy candles is a plus, because you don’t have to sacrifice anything.  It is a win win situation.  They burn at a lower temp, burn up to 50% longer than paraffin candles, cost about the same, and are good for the environment and you.  Why not try gourmet soy wax candles today and get involved with the green scene.

My wicks are smoking!  How dare them.  You have a special event happening and everything is elegantly laid out, and then the candles start to smoke.  Now what do you do?  Don’t panic, here are some ideas.

1. What kind is your candle?  Paraffin wax candles are more likely to smoke.  Instead try using a soy wax candle, as they put off much less smoke if any.
2. Ah, the wick.  Cotton wicks tend to burn cleaner than zinc core wicks.  When a wick gets those black balls on the top when burning it is called shroom.  Zinc core wicks shroom more and can create more smoke.  Burn only candles with cotton or natural products wicks.
3. Do you blow out your candles?  This creates more black smoke.  Try using a wick dipper.  This is a metal tool used to push the wick down into the melt pool to  extinguish it and then use it to pull the wick back up straight for the next time.  Wick dipper use means less smoke!
4. Has your candle had the proper care?  Be sure and let it burn all the way across the first time that you burn it, before putting out the wick.  Is the wick being trimmed like it should?  It should be trimmed to 1/8 inch each time before burning. 
5. Drafts can cause a candle to put off more smoke.  Check the placement of your candles before lighting them for sudden hidden winds. 

The factors most involved in the smoking wicks has to do with the type of candle wax being burnt and the product in the wicks.  Using gourmet soy candles with cotton wicks is the answer to reducing the amount of second hand inhalation of wick smoke in your home.

With the weather beginning to turn cold and wet, you find yourself indoors more.  Some of you may turn to doing fun things that you normally would not do, now that there is more time on your hands.  A fun project with your children might be to make soy candles.  What a neat idea for Christmas gifts!  Here are some safety tips to keep in mind when making your soy candles.

1. Be sure and never let the art of candle making become routine.  Don’t become careless just because you think you are an expert now.
2. Don’t handle hot pots or cans with your bare hands.  Use a hot pad or some pliers.
3. Don’t leave hot wax unattended, even in a double boiler.
4. Keep wax away from open flames.
5. Be sure and not overheat wax.  It will spontaneously com-bust when reaching flash point which is 375 degrees F for paraffin wax.  Don’t heat wax over 212 degrees F.
6. Overheated wax may cause severe illness from the fumes.  Remove yourself from the area and be sure to well ventilate it before returning.
7. Use a thermometer.  Always know and be aware of the wax temperature.  This way you will have good results as well as being safe.
8. Use a double boiler or wax melter.  The double boiler will help to control the heat.  An old pot filled with water and a coffee can set down inside the pot to melt the wax in will also work.  The typical melting temperatures can reach 200 degrees F.
9. If you have a wax fire, don’t put water on it.  Always keep a pot lid, baking soda, and a dry chemical fire extinguisher close when heating wax.  If the fire is in the melting container put the lid on it.  Use the baking soda to smother small fires outside the pot.  For a major wax fire use the fire extinguisher.  Remember don’t leave the melting wax unattended.
10. Never pour wax down your drain.  It will harden and clog the drain.  Instead pour any waste wax into a can or milk carton and discard in the trash after it has cooled.

These tips will make your soy candle making safer and more enjoyable.  Enjoy the days spent inside this winter and try a new hobby with your kids, the art of soy candle making.

When the holidays are coming and you are expecting guests, most people focus on cleaning and decorating their homes, creating a visual appearance their guests will appreciate.  However, it is also wise to think about how your home smells.  This doesn’t mean hiding the litter box or taking out the trash twice an hour, but rather introducing some fragrant scents into your home.  You and your guests will appreciate the smell of cinnamon, apples, caramel, or vanilla wafting throughout the house.  The traditional method to accomplish this would be through the use of candles.  However for a method that is cheaper and more cost effective, consider tarts or melts and a warmer. 

Tarts or melts are small cubes of wax which are placed in a warmer, and then melt releasing their scents for several hours.  Warmers are purchasable from specialty stores and online, while tarts and melts tend to be available in most places.  The soy tart is available in multiple flavors and lasts up to twenty hours, giving you a great scent for all your holiday events.

Candles made from soy are quite different than the traditional paraffin wax candles, and provide several benefits which traditional candles do not.  For one, soy candles burn clean, thus the black stains which appear on walls or tables will be no more.  Scented candles will also last much longer if they are made from soy.  When you purchase a soy candle also know that you are helping the environment, as soy candles are made from hydrogenated soybean oil; a natural and renewable resource. 

For households with pets and children, soy candles are also safer than paraffin wax candles because they burn cooler, thus ensuring no hot wax, and the wax is also water soluble in case of wax stains left on a surface or fabric.

Picture this in your mind.  You go to the closet or dresser drawer and take out the item of clothing you wish to wear.  You notice a pungent odor, that of must and rot.  You look around for the source but find none.  After putting on the clothing, you notice the odor following you.  What is that you wonder!  It is your clothing and you don’t have time to change.  Even if you did, everything else would smell just like it.  Why is it that our drawers and closets produce that smell?  I once had a cedar lined closet and it helped the problem immensely, but it was expensive to line that closet with cedar. 

Here is a less expensive and simpler idea, Gourmet Soy Melts.  They are designed to put into an electric soy melt warmer and melt down into a liquid soy wax that gives off the aroma of the fragrance you chose.  You can even mix and match the soy melts to create your own blend of fragrance.  But have you thought of breaking off a melt cube and tucking it into your dresser drawer or putting it on the shelf in your closet?  The melt cubes are so highly scented with fragrance that you don’t have to melt them to get their aroma dispersed.  I use to buy deodorizers and put in my closet.  I have found that the melt cubes are more appealing to my sense of smell and are so compact so as not to even be noticed.  Just one more versatility of the soy bean and soy wax.

The soy bean is very versatile.  It has so many uses these days, from that of a high protein source to body and skin care products, to cleaning products, paint removers, pens, crayons, and finally soy candle wax.  There is even a published finding in the “Archives of Internal Medicine” where regular soy consumption reduces bone fracture risk in postmenopausal women.  The study shows that soy, a rich source of plant estrogen’s, helps to keep in proper measure bone turnover and increase bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. 

Once again soybeans are a renewable and biodegradable resource.  New uses of soy are being researched today because of its abundance and growing potential.  Soy candle wax is an prime example of the many versatile uses of this legume.   You can see that using soy candles helps the U.S. economy and our farmers.  If soy wax replaced paraffin wax it would take an estimated 60 million pounds of soy beans annually for soy candle production.  The good news is that soy candles don’t put your health at risk, they are soot free and they help our environment.  Go green with soy wax candles today. 

With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, the pumpkin is a common theme.  Did you know that you can eat pumpkin flowers, or that pumpkins contain potassium and Vitamin A?  Pumpkin was once used as an ingredient for the crust of the pie, not the filling, in colonial times.  The largest one grown weighed 1,140 pounds.  Pumpkins once were used for its medicinal purposes in removing freckles and for snake bites.  The traditional pumpkin in America is the Connecticut field variety.  90 percent of a pumpkin’s elements is water.  The name given pumpkins by The Native Americans was “isqoutm squash”, they used the seeds for food and medicine and they flattened strips of pumpkins and dried them to make mats.  October is the month to find 80 percent of the pumpkin supply available in the U.S.  And last but not least, the largest pumpkin pie made was astronomical in size.  It was over 5 feet in diameter, weighed over 350 pounds, used 60 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took 6 hours to bake.  Imagine the oven it took to bake that pumpkin pie! 

Well you don’t need an oven that big just to fill your home with the fresh scent of pumpkin pie cooking.  Instead try a simpler approach.  Just light your soy wax candle and sit back and enjoy the holiday season.  You can find just the right fragrance for the season and share it with your loved ones. If you want to entice more of your senses, besides your nose, go ahead and bake that pumpkin pie.  Happy Holidays!

The pumpkin is a very popular item this time of year.  It is a squash, a member of the Cucurbita family.  Antarctica is the only continent that can’t grow pumpkins due to the climate.  Pumpkins grow in six of the remaining continents, even including Alaska.  Morton, Illinois has become the self proclaimed pumpkin capital of the world.  It is the home of Libby’s corporation pumpkin industry.  The tradition of carving pumpkins began with turnips.  The Irish started the tradition of carving turnips for the holiday.  When they immigrated to America, they instead found the pumpkin to be plentiful and switched from turnip carving to pumpkin carving. 

Pumpkin pie is a holiday treat.  The delectable aroma of a fresh baked pumpkin pie can now be yours at the light of a match.  Simply put that lighted match to the wick of your pumpkin spice scented soy candle and let your nose do the smelling.  Why not bring Thanksgiving to your home all month long and enjoy the many blessings that this America has to give us.  When your scented pumpkin spice soy candle burns, remember to be thankful for our land, our families, our health, and our soldiers that serve to keep us free.  Thank-you soldiers!