The History of Candles: From Firelight to Soy Delight

Let’s rewind a few thousand years, back to when lighting a room didn’t involve switches, sockets, or energy bills. Back when fire was everything: warmth, protection, and, well… light.

Long before we had scented soy candles burning on bathroom shelves, humans were melting animal fat and calling it innovation. Romantic? Not really. But revolutionary? Oh, yes.

It All Started With Fire (and Fat)

The very first candles weren’t even candles. Ancient Egyptians dipped reeds in melted animal fat around 3000 BCE, creating what was essentially the world’s first torch. A few centuries later, the Romans took things up a notch (of course). They rolled papyrus and dipped it in tallow (animal fat) or beeswax, birthing the earliest true candles.

Beeswax was fancy stuff. It burned cleaner and smelled less like a wet sheep. That meant it was reserved for temples, royals, and people with money. Everyone else? Still stuck with smoky, greasy tallow.

The Middle Ages: When Candles Became the Light of Europe

By the Middle Ages, candles had become the go-to lighting method across Europe. Cities had candlemakers’ guilds, entire professions dedicated to the art of wax and wick.
But here’s the thing: they still used tallow. Which meant that medieval dinners glowed under a soft, flickering light… that also kind of smelled like roast beef.

Enter beeswax, again. Still rare, still expensive, but now symbolic of purity and divinity. Churches burned beeswax candles for ceremonies, while regular folks continued coughing through their smoky nights.

From Whales to Paraffin: The Industrial Revolution Gets Greasy

Fast-forward to the 18th and 19th centuries. Humanity, as always, was innovating, but not necessarily in the eco-friendly way. Enter spermaceti wax, made from oil found in the head cavities of sperm whales. It burned clean and bright, but it also came with a tragic environmental price.

Then came paraffin wax, the product of petroleum refining. Cheap, accessible, and easy to mass-produce. Suddenly, candles weren’t luxury items anymore. They were everyday essentials.

The world lit up, but it also filled up with paraffin, a material still used in many modern candles today. The problem? It’s derived from non-renewable fossil fuels and releases soot and toxins when burned.

The Modern Revolution: From Petroleum to Plants

Somewhere along the way, we collectively decided that maybe lighting our homes with oil-based candles wasn’t the most planet-friendly idea. And out of that eco-existential crisis, something better bloomed: soy wax.

Invented in the 1990s as a sustainable alternative, soy wax is made from hydrogenated soybean oil: a completely natural, renewable, vegan source. It burns cleaner, slower, and longer than paraffin. No soot. No toxins. No guilt.

And while the ancient Egyptians had their reeds and Romans their tallow, we — the enlightened candle lovers of the 21st century — have soy wax.

A Little Glow of Our Own

At Hot Mess Candle, I like to think of myself as a modern-day alchemist (have I ever mentioned by favorite book ever is The Alchemist by Coelho?) who is turning soybeans into moments of calm, chaos, romance, and rebellion.

My candles are:
🌿 Vegan & cruelty-free (no animal fats, no beeswax, no bad vibes)
🕯 Made with premium soy & coconut wax, locally produced in Europe
💨 Clean-burning and sustainable, because air quality matters
💅 A little bit hot, a little bit messy, just like life itself

From sculptural statement pieces to cozy container candles, every one of them carries a story - the continuation of that same human fascination with light.

From Rituals to Self-Care

Once upon a time, candles guided ships, lit altars, and kept wolves away.

Today, they guide meditations, light bubble baths, and keep existential dread away (temporarily).

Candles evolved with us. And they’re still evolving — just cleaner, smarter, and way more aesthetic. So next time you light your Hot Mess Candle, remember: you’re holding 5,000 years of human innovation in your hands, minus the whale oil, soot, and medieval smoke. Now our biggest worry is how to remove candle wax.

Welcome to the future of firelight.
It’s soy-based, sustainable, and unapologetically fabulous.

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