Granville Island Soy Candle Company Blog

As many of you will be aware we recently launched a new hand soap product.  Our soap is made from over 50% soy with other ingredients including jojoba, coconut, cocoa, and apricot kernel.  The combination of these ingredients creates a great soap with lots of moisture.  We sent the soaps using essential oils and other natural fragrances.  Currently the soap is offered in Lavender, Pear, and Natural (fragrance free).  Our soap product meets all requirements as set out in Health Canada’s Cosmetic Regulations, as they relate to soaps.

A lot of time and effort went into finding the optimal blend of the ingredients to create a soap product that we are happy with and we are pleased with it and proud to call it our own.

Soap is a new venture for us and we would appreciate any comments, suggestions, or requests that you might have as it relates to this product.

This weeks topic is GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) as it relates to soy wax.  Similar to fragrance oils this is a very complicated issue that I will attempt to explain in a simple and straightforward way.

When a soybean is genetically modified, the modification affects the protein portion of the bean.  The fatty acid has no discernable change.  Soy wax is made out of the fatty acid portion of the bean.  As such there is no way to test soy wax to determine if it was made from a bean that was or was not genetically modified.

At this time there is not a sufficient supply of non-GMO soybeans available to meet the demand of the soy wax market.  Most if not all soy wax manufacturers obtain their soy (or soy oil) from a farm co-op.  In other words they are receiving beans from many different farms.  Some beans may be non-GMO, while other are not.

While Granville Island Candle Company would like to produce candles from a wax that does not come from or support the practise of genetic modification, there is at this time no available supply of wax that meets this standard.

We also caution you be aware of phrases such as “contains no genetically modified material”.  Even if a manufacturer claims that the product has been tested and certified to “contain” no GMO that does NOT mean that the wax came from a non-GMO crop of soy beans.  All that this means is that there was no detectable DNA to test since the protein side of the bean was filtered out before wax production, and that is the portion of the bean that needs to be tested.

Simply put this means that the portion of the bean that would indicate the presence of a GMO is not in the wax so the test is positive.  This test has effectively no meaning in so far as GMO relates to soy wax.

At this time we would recommend taking any claim that their wax is made with 100% non-GMO soy beans with a grain of salt.  The cost of producing such a wax is simply not economical at this time.  We have queried every provider of soy wax that we can find.  In all cases, including those who claim to produce their wax from non-GMO sources or who claim that their wax does not “contain” GMO, when questioned directly we were told that they actually can not be sure where the crops originated from or what the crops GMO status would be.  No one has ever been able to produce a certificate of guarantee that the beans used came from a non-GMO crop.

As such we do not advertise our product as being either produced from non-GMO sources or being GMO free as we feel that both statements could be misleading and result in significant misunderstandings with our clients and their respective clients.

We encourage you to contact your local government representatives and ask them to push for more reform against GMO crops.  As more farmers return to natural forms of their produce the cost of these crops will drop.  The main reason for their expensive nature is the flood of cheap GMO crops on the market.

Granville Island Candle Company continues to search for a GMO free soy wax and hopes that in the future such a source will be found and that it will be economically viable.

We are often asked why we do not use pure essential oils in our candles.  For part one of the answer to this question please see our last blog post.

The second part of the answer to this question is one of environmental sustainability.  This is quite a complicated issue, but I will attempt to sum it up in this short post.

If every candle maker, perfumer, home fragrance company, and other users of aromas, were to only use 100% natural essential oils in their products many plants would effectively be wiped of the face of the planet.  A prime example of this is Sandalwood.  Sandalwood does not currently grow in sufficient quantities in natural settings to meet even a small percentage of the worlds demand for fragrances containing sandalwood.  As such many farmers have begun to grow sandalwood much like we do wheat, and soy.  However, this has led to the further destruction of forests and wetlands to make room for these farms.

Even with commercial growing of many of these plants we still would consume them to extinction if we used their oils to the level of full demand.  We must ask ourselves, if it is really worth using that fragrance oil if the harvesting of the plant is causing a negative impact on the environment.

The final aspect of essential oil use is volume.  In the case of many oils the amount of plant material that must be used to produce even a single oz of oil is extremely high.  Case in point: it can take as much as 80 lbs of Lavender flowers to make 1 oz of Lavender oil.  That is a lot of plant matter that could have been used for for other purposes such as teas.  Imagine how many cups of tea 80 lbs of Lavender could make.  Now take that same 80 lbs of Lavender and you get approximately, 4 seven oz candles.

As mentioned in my previous post we do use fragrance oils that contain essential oils, however, we generally do not use oils that only contain them.  Essential oils are also more likely to fluctuate in price due to their supply being tied to weather patterns and crop success.  Further the quality of an oil can vary from season to season depending on the growing conditions which can lead to an unreliable quality level in our fragrances.

When we do use essential oils we strive to balance the need for environmental sustainability and economic viability.  We will generally avoid oils which come from plant matter that is endangered or is often grown in clear cuts, or under questionable circumstances.  Further we try to use oils that come from relatively, small amounts of plant matter, although it is very rare to find since most oils require massive amounts of plant matter much like the lavender example above.

While we were preparing to launch our new Soy Soap product I found this interesting clip from the Health Canada website:

“Natural Versus Synthetic”

“There is a general assumption among consumers that “natural” products are better or healthier than similar ones using synthetic ingredients. Often, however, these “natural” ingredients are no different in chemical composition than their synthetic counterparts. In fact, a synthetic substance which mimics a natural one can sometimes provide a purer, more stable ingredient which gives the product a longer usable life. Health Canada considers both natural and synthetic ingredients to be equally suitable for use in cosmetics.”

quoted from http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/person/cosmet/faq-eng.php#natural

One final thought on essential oils is also that many commonly used essential oils can also be quite dangerous to the health of certain persons.  A number of the natural ingredients such as patchouli oil, civet, orris root, galbanum, asafetida, and bergamot oil can also cause trouble, particularly for sensitive individuals.  Bergamot oil is classified as a hazardous substance and strong sensitizer much like formaldehyde.  That is, like formaldehyde, it is capable of causing Multiple Chemical Hypersensitivity in otherwise well people.  These are all common oils used in many scented products.

One of the most common questions that we are asked is about fragrance oils.

Natural vs. Synthetic?

What is in them?

How are they made?

Are the Safe?

Are they made with essential oils?

In short most of the fragrance oils that we use are Naturally Derived.  This means that while they are made in a lab the carrier oils and aromas are derived from nature identical ingredients.  In addition many of our fragrances do contain essential oils.  This is mostly limited to the fruit and floral fragrances, such as lemon grass, gardenia, patchouli, and lavender.  This type of fragrance allows us to offer a candle that is economical while still friendly to the environment and your health.

All of our fragrance oils contain no ingredients on California’s Prop 65 List of Cancer causing ingredients.

Perhaps just as important our fragrances are made with a base carrier oil that is derived from soy oil instead of petroleum by-products as most fragrances are.  This eliminates one of the larger causes of allergies and sensitivities to fragrances.  However, some people are actually allergic to the aromas and not the carrier oils.

We are also often asked why we do not use pure essential oils in our candles.  There are two major reasons for this.  The first is that many essential oils will not burn well in a candle.  They are simple not meant for that type of use and must be modified or suspended in an appropriate carrier oil base to make them candle compatible.

The second reason is cost.  Essential oils are generally much more expensive than naturally derived oils.  On many of our fragrances we would have to triple our price to offer them in essential oils.  Even at those prices the oils would actually be inferior to our current fragrances in the quality of the aroma, and the fragrance throw.  This would make the candles extremely uneconomical and unaffordable.  We caution you to be wary of candle manufacturers who offer candles in essential oils.  Look at the price and think about it.  If they are selling a 7oz candle for less than 20 or so dollars and they claim that is is made with essential oils, it probably only contains essential oils along with other synthetic fragrance oils.

Future blogs will discuss the environmental impact that the use of essential oils creates.

Welcome to our new blog!

We will strive to post a new article or short post at least once a week on a different topic.  If we just can not seem to find something worth writing about we will post a link to another interesting article.

We will post information about soy candles, essential oils, fragrances, packaging, sales, company news and more here whenever possible.

Please feel free to comment and provide your own insights!