Beeswax VS Stearic

[Jeana]

For those of you who like to firm up your container candle wax (just a little) Which do you prefer stearic or beeswax? And does anyone have any input if both are consistent order to order without seeing changes in the way the candle burns or behaves?

[TallTayl]

Totally depends on your brand of wax. Some do not blend well with beeswax. Sometimes stearic will cause loss of HT. 

[Candybee]

I've used beeswax before to firm up soy. But you can only use a very small % of less than 5% otherwise you can get cracks in the wax. After experimenting further I found using a bit of paraffin was far better for me than beeswax.

[Jeana]

18 hours ago, TallTayl said:

Totally depends on your brand of wax. Some do not blend well with beeswax. Sometimes stearic will cause loss of HT. 

 

I forgot about loss of HT with Stearic. I used to use it with palm pillars and it wasn't too bad. The max I would use it is 2%. I would prefer to use BW, but it is so expensive I have to keep my options open. The waxes I'm playing with right now are compatible with both BW and stearic. 

I've seen on other posts that you pour a lot of BW candles. Do you ever see inconsistencies from order to order of it? (Like we see in soys and paraffins) Does it ever burn differently? I don't mind about color differences, but I do mind if it would have varying burn results every order. 

Who would you say has the best prices for BW? 

[Jeana]

8 hours ago, Candybee said:

I've used beeswax before to firm up soy. But you can only use a very small % of less than 5% otherwise you can get cracks in the wax. After experimenting further I found using a bit of paraffin was far better for me than beeswax.

 

I've been playing with a lot of paraffin lately and I really start having respiratory issues with it. Even at small amount. I've used several types and it gets pretty bad. I don't get this with natural waxes. I was ready to switch completely to paraffin, but couldn't handle it even for testing.