History of the Candle
Candles are one of the oldest ways of bringing light, warmth and atmosphere into a home. They have been around for thousands of years, and today we mostly light them for the scent and the glow rather than to see by. Here is a short history of how the candle got from smoky animal fat to the soy wax candles and wax melts we pour today.
Early Origins: Rushlights and Torches
The earliest light sources that look like candles were rushlights. The ancient Egyptians made them by soaking the pith of reeds in melted animal fat. They gave a useful light, but they had no true wick running through the middle of the wax.
The First Wicked Candles
The Romans are generally credited with developing the wicked candle. They dipped rolled papyrus or rushes into melted tallow or beeswax, again and again, until a candle formed. These were used to light homes, to help travellers at night and in religious ceremonies.
Other early civilisations found their own ways to make candles from whatever they had to hand. In China, candles were made from wax linked to insects and seeds, while in India candle wax was reportedly made by boiling the fruit of the cinnamon tree.
The Middle Ages: Tallow and Beeswax
For centuries, most households in Europe burned tallow candles made from animal fat. They were cheap, but they smoked, spluttered and smelt unpleasant. Beeswax candles burned much more cleanly and gave off a sweet, honeyed scent. They were also expensive, so they were mostly kept for churches and wealthy homes.
Candle making became a skilled trade in this period. Chandlers, as candle makers were known, formed guilds in towns across England and France, and many went from house to house turning saved kitchen fat into candles.
New Waxes and New Machines
The 1800s brought the biggest changes. In the 1820s, the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul worked out how to separate stearic acid from animal fats, which led to harder, longer burning stearin candles. In 1834, Joseph Morgan patented a machine that could produce moulded candles continuously, and candles became affordable for ordinary households.
In the 1850s, paraffin wax was developed from petroleum. It was cheap, clean burning and almost odourless, and it became the standard candle wax for well over a century. When electric light arrived in the late 1800s, candles stopped being a necessity, but people kept lighting them for the atmosphere.
Candles Today
From the 1990s, candle makers began to look beyond paraffin, and soy wax became popular as a softer, slower burning alternative made from soybeans. Modern fragrance oils also made it possible to create candles that fill a room with scent, which is what most of us buy them for now.
That is the thinking behind everything we make at Hampshire Candles. Our scented candles are hand-poured in small batches, and our soy wax melts let you enjoy the same fragrances without a flame. Not sure which suits you? Our guide to candles or wax melts, which is better? will help you choose.