What's the different b/w soy and paraffin?

[Guest EMercier]

What is the difference between soy and regular paraffin wax?? I've heard different things and have been asked if I did soy. I've done only paraffin and it works fine for me. No major complaints except people who want to hear themselves complain.

[scottopus]

This is such a broad question. I'll answer it in very general terms:

Soy is:

Renewable sustainable resources requiring plant growth

Longer and cooler burning than pariffin

When properly wicked, cleaner burning without soot buildup (soy soot is grey)

Made in the USA with domestically grown crops

Clean up with soap and hot water eliminating solvents

Pariffin is:

A petroleum product

Even when properly wick, burning pariffin will give off black soot that will eventually build up

Mass majority of petroleum is imported into this country

Since pariffin is oil based, it need oil solvents to clean up

Very stable inert wax

These are some of the big ones.

[Terrie]

I use a wax that is 98% soy, because I got fed up with the black soot and smoke that paraffin gave me. Some people never get soot or smoke with par., but I always did. I got awesome throws with it, but I gave up and decided to move on. I have found that the major difference between soy and par, for me, is that the soy burns so much cleaner.

[Henryk]

So far I've only used 1343 pillar wax - no smoke or soot at all (I was waiting for it but it never happened) - even on 14 hour power burns. Can I ask, the soot you were getting with paraffin - was it in containers or pillars? And if I may ask, what wax were you using. (I'm new at paraffin so just trying to gather some info).

Thanks.

[RobinInOR]

I use both a straight paraffin (1343) and a paraffin/soy blend..

Other differences:

Paraffins have a larger range of surface looks you can get - shiny, matte, mottled, rustic. Paraffin changes it's look more with the use of different additives. Although palm waxes are being developed that also have different surfaces - granite, feathered, crystal..... Don't think you'd ever get shiny out of soy though.

Soy/naturals are more "brittle" waxes - they don't flex as much. You can't hug them in a pillar.

[scottopus]

When I said:

Even when properly wick, burning pariffin will give off black soot that will eventually build up

When pariffin burns, it produces CO2, H2O, Heat, Light, and some degree of incomplete combustion (soot). Pariffin soot is black macro-particle carbon chains. Soy soot is tan/grey micro-particle carbon chains.

A properly wick pariffin or soy candle will produce small amounts of soot. With pariffin, these small amounts of macro-particle soot will collect somewhere (on the jar, wall, lampshade, table, ect.) and you'll be able to see it since it black. With the soy, you can't really see it since it's grey/tan color and it micro-particle doesn't make it as "sticky".

Anyone who says soy or even a pariffin candle don't give off any soot doesn't know the facts.

[RobinInOR]

Yup, where there's flame, there's soot.

You brought up something interesting though that I've never thought of - particle size of soot. Whether it's light or dark color doesn't matter to me - light color soot that I can't see isn't any healthier than dark color soot that I *can* see.

I've seen references to paraffin soot particle size as being anywhere from .06 - .1 micron. You mentioned soy was a micro size. Any idea of how small? I couldn't find any tech references.

In any case, I've read that anything less than 1 micron can get stuck in the lungs. To my way of thinking, smaller particles could be more of a danger - they stay in the air longer and are thus more easily taken into the lungs.

I'll have to go google, I like collecting pieces of info like this for some web pages I've got.

[Terrie]

So far I've only used 1343 pillar wax - no smoke or soot at all (I was waiting for it but it never happened) - even on 14 hour power burns. Can I ask, the soot you were getting with paraffin - was it in containers or pillars? And if I may ask, what wax were you using. (I'm new at paraffin so just trying to gather some info).

Thanks.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was talking about paraffin container waxes. I've tried a bajillion of them. J-50, J-223, IGI 4786, CW129, Comfort Blend, IGI 1945/4630, and a few others. I ALWAYS got soot, and with most of them I got horrible smoking while burning, even with the wick trimmed. The smoking was the worst with the 1945/4630. The soot/smoke occured in all of these waxes when I used 3% AND 6% FO.

When I said soy is cleaner burning for me, what I meant was that the jars are cleaner. Soy may put off "white" soot, but I can't see it. I don't like black soot showing up on my containers. I won't sell them that way.

[Mona]

http://www.igiwax.com/wax_faq.shtml