What on earth is synthetic beeswax?

What on earth is synthetic beeswax and why on earth do we need it? That’s the question I asked when I checked out the ingredients on one of my daughter’s chemist-suggested eczema creams only to discover it said “synthetic beeswax”.  It got me wondering…who makes it? (perhaps Cyborg bees?). What’s in it? (perhaps petrochemical honey & plastic flowers?)… and what does it mean for my little one’s skin and overall health :) .

So, after a day out with the real bees today, collecting fresh honey and non-synthetic beeswax, I started doing some research.

First up though, here are some pics from today’s excursion to some of the hives.  It was time to extract some honey and collect beeswax to add to the stockpile we’re using to make our lip balms, skin balms, goats milk and honey soap,  essential oil balms and beeswax furniture polish.

Ready for beekeeping, including two smokers because we're "nervous puffers"

Our bees have a great view, a nice shady tree and water nearby

The bees have made some beeswax in the couple of days the clearer board has been in place.

Using the hive tool we collect the excess wax

A frame of capped honey. You can see on the edge where we have scraped wax from the sides of the frame and the honey is exposed. We saved this wax for our balms, and then extract the honey too.

Having extracted the honey and wax, we return one of the "supers" back to its hive...a couple more to go before the day is done!

The bees enjoy some of the honey drops on the clearer board

So…synthetic beeswax…the best information I found was at the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database. Here I discovered that synthetic beeswax – as opposed to natural and normal honeybee  beeswax – is a synthetically derived wax consisting “chiefly of a mixture of esters of even-numbered, straight chain acids and alcohols containing 16-36 carbon atoms”.  Now, there’ s not a lot known about the effects of this wax as there haven’t been enough studies done (why not!?!), but a few have shown that synthetic beeswax:

• may have a skin irritating effect
• is suspected of being an environmental toxin (aquatic)
• caused diarrohea in rats and skin irritation in bunnies

hmmm….another reason to make our own creams and balms! Another reason to check the back of the creams and lotions and potions you use to find out exactly what’s inside.  Our skin is our biggest organ, so wherever possible I want my kids to be using something made by nature not something made in a lab!  Tomorrow I’ll hopefully be able to blog about how we wash, dry and then solar melt the wax for use in our balms and soaps, it’s lots of fun to do and the smell is just delicious.