Nothing brings us to that nostalgic, Christmasy feeling like the old-fashioned, earthy fragrance of elegant bayberry candles burning on our table. If you’ve ever visited a historic home during the holidays, you will recognize the scent of the real thing. The tradition of a holiday bayberry candle is an old one, and has inspired charming poems that explain the benefits that await any household that burns one of these candles:
“A bayberry candle
burned to the socket
puts luck in the home,
food in the larder,
and gold in the pocket.”
Bayberry candles: A historical tradition
Comparing burn times of bayberry vs beeswax.
Why would a strangely scented candle be so strongly linked to the winter holidays? The answer is surprisingly simple: Before electricity, and before gas lamps, most people lit their homes by candlelight. The primary fat used to make these candles was tallow made from the fat of livestock. Early European colonists kept various animals that could produce this tallow, and often made their own candles at home as they processed the meat of their livestock.
Two other sources of candle wax were the wax-covered fruits of bayberry plants, as well as beeswax harvested from the household’s hives. Candles made from these waxes were pleasant, bright, and had a gentle and pleasing odor - very different from the smoky tallow candles that likely made candle-lit homes smell a bit like a deep fryer. These pleasant waxes were prized, but were much harder to obtain.
Waxy bayberries could be collected in the fall and boiled to obtain their wax, but the number of bayberry plants was limited, and it could take many pounds of berries to produce just one pound of bayberry wax. Beeswax was obtained when the combs were crushed and the honey strained out. Candles made from these rare and valuable waxes would surely have been treasured, and used to make just a handful of special candles each year.
Imagine yourself living in a small house near the coast of New England in the 1700s. As the days grow longer, more and more of your family’s lives are spent in your small house, lit by smelly tallow candles. You have only a few candles made of bayberry wax, or blended bayberry and beeswax, and you want to save them for a special day. What day would you choose? Surely a Christmas Eve full of pleasant, earthy smells would be a very welcome change, and a good use of your precious bayberry candles.
Information about the the bayberry wax we carry
Our bayberry wax yields authentic bayberry candles, unlike many bayberry candles sold today that rely on artificially created fragrances and artificial green colorings. If your store bought “bayberry candle” smells like cinnamon, you may just have a cinnamon candle that has been dyed green.
Bayberries come from a closely related cluster of plant species, whose combined range spans the coasts of North and South America. The northern bayberry tree (Latin name: Myrica pensylvanica) is endangered or threatened in parts of its native range and cannot be sustainably harvested and sold, which is why we source our wax from a more ethical and closely related sister species that lives further south. The filtered bayberry wax available from Betterbee comes to us from Colombia, where it is not cultivated but rather harvested in a natural environment. It is then further refined in the United States. Our wax is made from the fruit of a South American bayberry tree (Latin name: Myrica pubescens), but fear not: The holiday magic of a bayberry candle works just as well if the wax comes from a North American, Caribbean, or South American species of bayberry plant.
How to make your own bayberry candles
Betterbee’s own Suzanne Cohen, making a batch of bayberry candles for this article.
If you want to join this long tradition of making and enjoying holiday bayberry candles, you should know a few tricks and tips to ensure your success.
First, bayberry wax is a stickier, more brittle wax than beeswax, and it tends to get stuck in molds. For this reason, we recommend a 50/50 blend of bayberry wax and natural beeswax for candles. This tip is especially important for molded candles. Whether you use pure or blended bayberry wax, a sprayed releasing agent is highly recommended for any molded candles so that the bayberry wax can’t stick to the mold. The olive green color and characteristic scent of the bayberry wax still stands out nicely when blended with pure beeswax, but the wax becomes much more “user friendly.”
100% bayberry wax candles burn okay as jar candles, but the top of the candle looks unappealing, as it does not lay as flat as a bayberry/beeswax blended candle.
Second, if you are making bayberry jar candles, pre-assembling your own wicks with our 60 ply wicking and our Large Wick Tabs is recommended. Smaller wicks may go out in jar-style candles when used with bayberry wax.
Third, keep in mind that your finished product will have the gentle, natural scent of bayberry, and a gentle, natural sage-green color. Don’t expect a bright green candle with a smell so strong it will knock the wind out of your holiday dinner guests! Fake bayberry wax will often be brighter and stinkier, but where’s the fun in using fake wax?
Finally, keep in mind that bayberry wax is similar to, but not exactly the same as, beeswax. Even if you’ve made hundreds of beeswax candles before, don’t assume that pure bayberry wax or blended bayberry and beeswax will behave exactly the same way. Take your time and work carefully. Bayberry wax has a melting point of 38-46 degrees centigrade. Based on our own testing, pure bayberry candles and 50:50 bayberry and beeswax blended candles both burn at almost precisely the same rate. A blended 12” taper burns at 1 ½ inches per hour, and a blended tealight burns for about 2 ½ hours in total.
Make sure you have all of your molds, jars, wicking, wax, release spray, and melting pots ready to go before you start making your own candles.
The finished product of an evening of bayberry candle pouring.
