A blog all about candles.
 Subscribe to Posts (RSS) and Comments (RSS)

Candles - Past and Present

Posted by tobeyanne @ 5:54 AM, Tuesday Nov 27th, 2007

Byzatine Lamp

In Biblical times, candles were used for lighting. The olive oil, pitch, coconut oils, palm oils, etc. was burned in a shallow candle holder shaped like a small tea pot with the opening where the lid of the tea pot would be. The candle was the main source of home lighting until the introduction of electricity.

Among the Greek and the Roman Empires, many candles were created using flax thread coated with pitch or beeswax. In other regions candles were made using a variety of oils, coconut oils, palm oils, olive oil and beeswax. To this day we still use beeswax in many of our candles.

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s women made their candles at home by dipping the long wick (or strand of cotton) into tallow, which is a rendering of fat from pigs and other animals.

When paraffin was introduced in the 1800’s, it slowly became the main ingredient in creating candles. It could be melted and mixed in with tallow to make a better candle.

In today’s environment, we use a wide variety of candles in our home décor, setting the right mood, saying I love you, and much more. We use pillar candles, votive candles, gel candles, scented and unscented floating candles and tumbler candles for we have a huge selection to choose from.

We no longer depend on candles for our light source. We do depend on scented candles to create a gentle flowing fragrance floating through our homes.

Created by www.TobeysCandles.com.

Leave a Reply

Archived Entry

Recent Posts

Categories:

Monthly Archives:

Floating Candles

Gift Sets / Basket Candles

Jar Candles

Pillar Candles

Miscellaneous Candles

Links