Benefits of using a Coconut Soy wax blend?

[MatteBlackCandleCo]

Hi everyone,

 

In your opinion, what are the benefits and pros to using coconut soy wax in candles? Would love to hear everyones opinions on it! 🙂

[TallTayl]

Personally, beginning around 2016 soy wax has steadily become very difficult to work with to produce a decent candle. Soy Melt behavior, weird aging candle soy issues, and mostly  Inconsistencies from lot to lot of the same wax made me look for 100% non-soy alternatives. 
 

adding coconut oil to soy is no different, really, than adding any other oil or similar material to soy wax.  All coconut oil does is lower the melt point, smooth the polymorphic edges of the soy crystals and act as a flux.  Those who swear by coconut oil or the plethora of coconut blends on the market could easily add the same % of paraffin (in some format), or palm oil, or crisco and get a similar effect. 
 

Coconut “wax” marketing spans any form of coconut oil that stays solid at room temp (coconut 76*, coconut 92*), to blends of coconut oil with hydrogenated oils, beeswax, stearic acid, and a host of other ingredients to solidify a mass of fuel into a format that people who make candles can work with.  The frustration of inconsistencies between lots, shortages and over marketing is real even with coconut containing fuels.  
 

 

[NightLight]

Having tested a lot of coconut wax blends, palm is better blender. Coconut oil does not  always blend well with waxes and can cause issues. But you can add .5% and claim coconut soy wax.

[AlishaT]

I have been candle making for decades.  There are too many problems with soys and coconuts in comparison to paraffin. Both soys and coconuts are not consistently manufactured so it is hard to get every batch to throw as the next as if it is a different lot # then the wax could be manufactured differently than the last lot.  Both coconit and soy also only produce pastel colors, and take more dye and fragrance oils as they do not hold either anywhere near as well as paraffin. Both also are a pain in the butt to wick.  The same exact formula but use of a different fragrance oil or color dye can cause a wick change to be necessary.  (That is not an issue with paraffin or para soys with a high paraffin content.  Once a formula is found for that container with paraffin or a high content paraffin para soy, the same size wick can normally be used for that container regardless of what dye or FO is used.)  Soys and coconuts also have problems with hot weather, such as sweating.  Soys and coconuts also tend to frost, which can be temporarily corrected but often returns. My company has tried every major brand of soys and we haven't bothered with coconut much as it is manufactured the same and performs much the same as soy. These waxes are way to problematic for larger companies to use, which is why most major label candle makers are still using paraffin wax.  Our company uses very little wax that is not paraffin other than IGI 6006 which is 70% paraffin and 30% soy. And we add paraffin to 6006 to make a higher content paraffin blend.  We also don't like the fact that soy has 2/3 more additives than paraffin wax to stabilize it for candle making, and coconut has even more.