It is sometimes called candleberry and wax myrtle. Bayberry candles are made from the waxy fruit of the shrub. Bayberry candles can be made in commercial candle molds or you can make little floating candles in walnut shells.
The legend has it to burn a bayberry candle in the home will bring fortune and good luck. Each votive candle will burn approx.
In more affluent homes, the women would make candles from beeswax or bayberry wax, as the aroma was far sweeter than anything an animal would leave behind.
It takes approximately 15 pounds of bayberries to render one pound of wax. Over time, chandlers made their rounds, relieving women of the chore of candle making. Bayberry (myrica cerifera) wax is the aromatic green vegetable wax removed from the surface of the fruit of the bayberry shrub by boiling the berries in water and skimming the wax from the surface of the water. It takes 15 pounds of bayberries to make one pound of bayberry wax.
There are between 35 and 50 species of small bayberry trees and shrubs. Bayberry wax, also known as bayberry tallow, candleberry, sweet gale, and wax myrtle, is the rarest and most prized of all candle waxes, and has a mild warm, earthy, spicy aroma.
Colonist folklore states that if you light a new bayberry candle on Christmas Eve, you’ll have health, wealth and prosperity in the coming year. A bayberry candle burnt to the socket brings food to the larder and gold to the pocket.
This holiday, look for taper candles made with genuine bayberry wax.
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BayBerry Candles
