Why We'll Never Use Soy Wax

The Ugly Truth About "Natural" Soy Wax

Visit almost any modern candle shop or website and you’ll likely see "natural soy wax" plastered across labels like a badge of honor. Soy has built a strong reputation as the default plant-based candle wax.

But sustainability is more complicated than a label.

Soy: An Industrial Crop With Real Trade-offs

Soy wax is made from soybean oil. Soy is grown on a huge scale in countries including Brazil, Argentina and the United States.

Agricultural expansion in South America has contributed to habitat loss and deforestation. Soy is part of that broader system, both directly and indirectly, but it would be inaccurate to say that soy alone is responsible for most Amazon fires.

Soy is an annual crop, which means it needs to be replanted each season. Intensive monoculture systems can also put pressure on soils and biodiversity.

A large share of soy grown in the Americas comes from genetically modified varieties, and intensive production often relies on herbicides and other agricultural inputs.

How Soy Wax is Made

1. Soybeans are harvested, cleaned, cracked and de-hulled.
2. Oil is extracted mechanically or with solvents such as hexane.
3. The oil is refined, bleached and deodorized.
4. Hydrogenation converts the liquid oil into a more solid wax.
5. The catalyst is filtered out and the wax is finished for candle use.

When we were beginning our candle-making journey, we tried many ingredients, including soy wax. After learning more about its supply chain and processing, we decided it wasn’t the material we wanted to build CocoBee around.

At CocoBee, we chose to blend beeswax with coconut wax for reasons that go beyond marketing buzzwords.

Beeswax is made by bees and has been used for candles for centuries. It’s a hard wax, though, so we blend it with coconut wax to get the texture and scent performance we want.

Our signature blend is 70% beeswax and 30% coconut wax.

Coconut wax gives the candle a softer, creamier texture and helps with scent throw.

Coconut: Perennial Trees, Different Trade-offs

Coconut wax is made from coconut oil. Coconut palms are perennial trees that can produce for decades, and a meaningful share of coconut production comes from smaller farms in Asia.

That doesn’t make coconut impact-free. Farming practices, processing and transport all matter. But its perennial growing cycle is one reason we prefer it to an annual crop like soy.

How Coconut Wax is Made

1. Coconuts are harvested from mature trees.
2. Coconut oil is extracted from the meat.
3. The oil is refined.
4. Hydrogenation is used to solidify the oil into wax.
5. The wax is filtered, cooled and packaged.

So both soy and coconut oil require processing before becoming candle wax. Neither is simply “pressed from the plant and poured into a candle.”

Why CocoBee Uses Coconut Wax (Blended with Beeswax)

We could have chosen soy. It’s widely available and familiar to customers. But CocoBee is about choosing materials that fit our own priorities rather than following the category default.

Our signature blend: 70% beeswax, 30% coconut wax

• Beeswax is minimally processed, gives the candle structure, and has a naturally warm character. Read more about beeswax here.
• Coconut wax gives us the smooth texture and scent performance we want from a softer plant-based wax.

For our Moisturizing Candles, coconut wax is also useful because it melts at a low temperature and blends well with mango butter and jojoba oil.

The Bottom Line: Not All "Natural" Waxes Are the Same

Soy wax isn’t inherently bad. It’s plant-based and can work very well in candles. But “natural” and “eco-friendly” are not complete descriptions of any material’s environmental footprint.

We prefer beeswax and coconut wax because their properties and supply chains fit what we want CocoBee to stand for.

Transparency Over Greenwashing

We won’t pretend coconut wax is “100% natural” straight from the tree. It requires processing, just like soy. We simply believe you deserve to know what the material is and why we chose it.

That’s the CocoBee difference: fewer buzzwords, more transparency.

Ready to experience the difference? Explore our collection of beeswax and coconut wax candles, handcrafted in Ljubljana.