Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills - 2 oz. Aloha Bay

Aloha Bay - Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills - 2 oz.

Aloha Bay Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills are made from 100% Eco Palm Wax. Aloha Bay Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills burn for up to 14 hours. All Aloha Bay Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills contain only 100% pure essential oils. Always burn Aloha Bay Essential Oil Votive Candle Lavender Hills in a votive glass.

Palm Wax
For over 15 years, Aloha Bay has been wholesaling gift and home decor items sourced first from Europe, then Asia and now includes Pakistan and Brazil. They always tried hard to follow business practices that are sustainable in the long run. They are aware of the impact they have on the planet, wildlife, neighbors, and global partners. This awareness shapes how they conduct business. By showing what they have accomplished so far, they hope to earn your support.

In the last decades, growing global demand for edible oils and bio-fuels has resulted in a tremendous increase in areas under oil crop cultivation, particularly soybean and oil palm. With the price of crude petroleum hitting record heights, soy and palm oil are being promoted as feasible sources for biodiesel, a renewable substitute for petroleum-derived diesel. The rapid expansion of both crops has resulted in the conversion of High Conservation Value Rainforests in South-East Asia and South America, including parts of the Amazon. As world production of soy and palm oil is expected to continue increasing at the current pace, there is a growing concern that this expansion would result in further reducing the rain forests. The habitat of many species, like the orangutan, could significantly diminish, endangering their survival.

Bart travels to Asia regularly. With their business partners, Ping and Prananto, he has worked from the very beginning on ways to make sure that their palm wax originates predominantly from smaller, old-growth palm plantations, located around villages in rural Indonesia. They also choose to buy palm wax from Malaysia, because its government has put a moratorium on forest clearing for the establishment of oil palm plantations. Only areas already used for agriculture will be allowed to convert to palm oil production. Recently, they started experimenting with certified organic palm wax from sustainable fair trade plantations in Brazil.

Aloha Bay has decided not to try and write their own articles about the pros and cons of palm oil production. Ever since they found palm wax to be the best candle wax, allowing them to make the most richly scented candles to date, they definitely have a vested interest! Instead, they have chosen to post third party peer reviewed articles from independent sources, which are self-funded, objective and then actually spend their time in the countries concerned. Unfortunately, public relations experts working for global agro-conglomerates have their own agendas, just as some environmental groups allow their judgment to be clouded by their desire for media coverage (resulting in hyped statements and over-simplification).

Palm Wax FAQ's

Is your palm wax 100% natural?
Palm oil itself is a steam distilled pure essential oil. Most palm plantations use conventional agricultural methods. However, there is a growing interest in organic farming, and they purchase certified organic palm wax from Colombia and Brazil.

Some of the palm wax is made by chilling the oil and spinning it around to isolate the oils (waxes) with the highest melt point. In order to obtain the harder, crystalline wax, the oil is hydrogenated (the same process used to make margarine).

Soy wax is most often a blend of waxes (soy, palm, & beeswax) that can contain as little as 25% soy oil. All soy wax is chemically distilled, with synthetic additives and mostly from GMO seed. Even hydrogenated, the soy wax stays buttery and oily, so it can only be used in containers. In their Palm Wax section, they are collecting articles from independent conservationists to illustrate what they believe: palm wax is more environmentally sustainable than soy wax.

Does palm wax or soy candle wax contain toxic additives?
Another way to consider the naturalness or purity of candles is to look at how the wax was refined and whether the candle colors or fragrances contain synthetic and possibly harmful petrochemicals. Paraffin and GMO soy wax is chemically distilled with petrochemical solvents, like hexane.

Soy candles then can never be certified organic. Only a very small percentage of all "soy candles" is actually made from 100% soy. Soy candle wax is almost always a blend of waxes that contains chemical additives.

Palm oil is steam-distilled, without the use of chemicals. In the case of regular palm wax, the oil is then hydrogenated (hardened) into wax, which does not require harmful chemicals. Certified organic palm wax is obtained by steam distillation and then chilling and spinning the oil, a process that does not require any non-organic substances

Where does your palm wax come from?
The palm wax they use is made from food grade palm oil. They only work with palm oil from plantations that are certified for using only sustainable agricultural practices. At the moment, they purchase palm wax from Malaysia, Brazil and Colombia. Indonesia is also a major producer of palm oil and palm wax, but because of uncertainty relative to what type of plantations it comes from, they do not use Indonesian palm wax in their candles.

Unfortunately, there are still agro-companies in Indonesia that clear tropical rainforest, especially in Borneo and Sumatra. This is, in their view, completely not necessary because there are large areas of land (previously deforested by logging companies) that could be turned into palm oil plantations. The palm wax they receive from Brazil and Colombia is from sustainable, certified organic agriculture. The tree farms in those countries are located on fields depleted by conventional farming, especially row-crops and cattle.

What are some of the benefits of palm wax?
Palm oil is a renewable resource and, unlike with soy oil and soy plantations, it requires a lot of manual labor to maintain the palm orchards, providing work for many farmers in Third World countries. Palm wax candles are very hard, smooth and dry. They can withstand summer heat without bending or melting and don't have an "oily" feel.

Why do your candles have a marble/crystal texture?
It is the nature of palm wax when it is hand poured at a lower temperature. Doing that and pouring in distinct layers, and letting it cool before the next pour, is a signature technique that they use to make candles.

Where did palm wax originate?
Essentially palm plantations are concentrated in Malaysia and other south East Asian countries. It is an ancient crop originally found in Africa. The palm tree produces several clusters of fruits, which are known as palm fruit. These bunches of fruit are then sent to oil mills so that they can undergo the process of sterilization. This is done in order to remove all traces of germs and bacteria. After that they undergo bunch stripping, after which the oil is extracted with the use of specialized machinery in the mills. This oil is then classified on the basis of hue, color, texture and viscosity. After that the final stage of palm oil extraction is called purification where with the use of various methods the correct texture of the oil is reached.

Are certain candle waxes better than others?
Yes and No. All types of candle waxes can perform well, and will burn cleanly and safely when they are of high quality. Most U.S. candle manufacturers select waxes or blends of waxes based on their suitability for specific types of candles or formulation profiles, as well as their own candle-making expertise. These days however, the bulk of candle grade paraffin comes from refineries in China (since U.S. refineries pretty much stopped producing it), and their experience has been that it's harder and harder to get the right quality. Candles imported from China are, as a rule, of very inferior quality: using the cheapest paraffin, bad wicks and cheap synthetic scents. Consequently, they do not burn well and (typically) burn down quite fast.

How well do palm wax candles burn?
Not only do their Palm Wax Candles burn clean, which means they do not emanate lots of soot into the air, they also have the distinct advantage of a long burning time. Palm wax has a very hard texture and feel to it, which means that it does not give way readily, so even under warmer conditions their Palm Tapers won't bend. Their customers report that the flame is brighter than paraffin and soy candles. They especially like the crystal look and the hand poured layer effect.

Your palm candle labels are kind of plain compared to Yankee Candles. Why?
One of the best compliments they got at a show was customer coming over and saying, "Dude, I recognized your candles: you do the naked jars without labels." We put their money into higher quality pure and natural ingredients, not the packaging and the labeling.

About Aloha Bay
In 1993, Aloha Bay began manufacturing and wholesaling hand dipped paraffin tapers, painted with palm wax. These beautiful tapers are still popular in the gift industry. In 1997, they developed the first 100% Palm Wax votives and richly scented jar candles.

Over the years, they have expanded their use of pure essential oils and have become the primary vegetable wax wholesale candle and Himalayan salt lamp supplier to the natural food industry.

Aloha Bay has continued to experiment with every type of vegetable wax (soy, coconut, rice bran, carnauba, candelilla, bayberry, jojoba and even castor oil).

They have found that palm wax makes the best candles especially blended with high concentrations of pure essential oil scents.

Most vegetable waxes (e.g. soy wax) are too soft and oily to be used by themselves, so they are often mixed together with large percentages of palm wax.