What Are The Benefits of Coconut Oil Wax Candles? | The Ultimate Guide
Coconuts are widely known as a superfood. Some even consider coconuts to be the "fruit of life". You’d be able to survive for quite a while on a remote island by eating only coconut meat and coconut juice!
Coconuts are packed with benefits and can be used in all sorts of products - including using coconut oil to create coconut wax candles.
While we can turn just about any oil into wax, some oils are better choices than others in terms of the benefits they offer. This is why we chose coconut oil for our own wax candle range. In this guide, we’ll also share the benefits of coconut wax and why coconut oil candles are so worth investing in.
What Is Coconut Wax?
These candles are durable, which is different from paraffin wax. It’s a renewable resource and it also doesn’t require any pesticides or fertilizers to grow.
Coconut wax candles have an excellent fragrance and they burn clean, which means that when lit, they don’t produce harmful chemicals.
Coconut wax is a very slow-burning wax, meaning the candle will last longer than a traditional candle - up to 50%.
Though nearly every wax available has some type of drawback, especially in terms of the environment, coconut oil is arguably the most sustainable wax of all the options available. This is mainly due to the way it’s grown and supported by various organizations around the world, including the Rainforest Alliance.
The Benefits of Coconut Wax Candles
Candles made with coconut wax contain a variety of benefits. Let’s dive into some of them.
Coconut Wax Is Genuinely Sustainable
It’s a well-known fact that paraffin is unfortunately not a product that is sustainable. Paraffin wax is very popular and widely used, but it’s derived from fossil fuels which bring many problems. These include heavy soot, toxic fumes, and not to mention the effect it has on global warming.
While paraffin is undoubtedly one of the least sustainable wax options available, there are many others that are also not good for the environment. For example, palm oil burns clean and has many qualities that make it ideal for candle burning.
But although it comes from a renewable source, it’s not good for the environment.
This is because of the huge amount of forests in the Amazon and other important areas that are burned to set up palm oil plantations. Ultimately, while it’s possible to grow palm oil sustainably, it’s not a good sustainable choice.
On the flipside, pesticides aren’t required for coconuts, nor are fertilizers to grow. They are harvested by hand, without requiring heavy machinery. While coconuts may one day be grown unsustainably, they are now very carefully grown by independent farmers in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Growing coconuts not only help these people out of poverty, but sustainable development gives them better financial options as well as access to better markets.
Almost every wax type has some environmental disadvantage. Even so, coconut wax is arguably the best when it comes to sustainable options due to the way it’s grown and the fact that it’s supported by organizations like the Rainforest Alliance.
Our candles are made from a bespoke blend of Virginutty coconut oil and EU-sourced rapeseed wax, as that keeps our carbon footprint down and ensures each candle is 100% plant-based.
2. Coconut Wax Gives Off a Superior Scent
While a sustainable wax may make it worth dealing with substandard candles for some, the benefits of coconut wax doesn't stop there.
Coconut wax is able to retain a lot of fragrance in its wax, up to 12%, making it an excellent choice for both essential oils and perfume. In addition to keeping a lot of fragrance, coconut wax also has a great cold and hot effect.
When you open a jar to smell a candle, you’ll get a very good idea of how it smells like and it makes it easier to choose whether you want to buy it or not.
Coconut wax also doesn’t disappoint when heated. It’s a superior option compared to any other type of wax when we look at fragrance throw, and it can be utilized with essential oils that can often produce a faint odor in other types of candles.
3. Coconut Wax Allows for A Cleaner Burn
People don’t like soot, so a smoked candle is not a win-win feature. In addition, certain wax types like paraffin, for example, can lead to many health problems related to smoking.
Lighted candles that don’t burn cleanly can release lots of toxic fumes, including dangerous compounds associated with asthma and migraines. A study about paraffin candles found that it specifically released specific compounds that are known to cause cancer.
Because of the dangers associated with most candles, a clean-burning candle is an ideal solution. Coconut wax is superior, as they are slow burning and non-toxic. Coconut wax burns for a long time and leaves no soot in your home.
High-quality candle wax is less likely to produce soot than low-quality candles, and our coconut wax candles offer some of the best burnouts.
4. Soy Wax vs. Coconut Wax
There are many natural alternatives to paraffin candles and one of these is soy wax. It comes from the oil of soybeans and was originally created by the Purdue University in 1996 when students were asked to create a candle from sustainable, natural materials.
Although soybeans are produced from renewable resources, they aren’t always grown sustainably. Oftentimes soybeans are grown in the same way as palm oil which requires rainforests to be burned down to make way for the fields.
Soybeans that are grown sustainably are an excellent resource and they even offer benefits in terms of flammability, as soy wax burns slightly faster than coconut without the smell.
It’s very common to see that coconut and other plant oils are blended in order to get the best of both worlds. These candles offer a higher melting point and a great scent.
Try out Virginutty’s own amazing range of ethical plant-based coconut wax candles inspired by the Philippine islands and see how you feel!