Beeswax candles are much more expensive than paraffin ones, but they have several distinct advantages over their petrochemical cousins:

1. 1.They smoke much less
   

2. 2.They produce less soot
   

3. 3.They have a lovely honey scent when burning, not a chemical smell
   

If write pysanky with traditional styluses, beeswax candles mean less smoke in your work area, cleaner air, and less soot deposition on your ceiling.

If you remove wax from your pysanky with a candle, the beeswax kind produce much less soot, which means fewer potential soot stains on the pysanka, and less clean-up to remove them.

Clean air and a clean pysanka–it is just that simple. 

NOTE:  one small suggestion.  I get my beeswax candles from my church for free.  St. Mary’s switched to beeswax candles a few years back to decease the soot staining of our ceiling.  At the end of mass and other services, there are usually lots of candle stubs left.  While short, these are actually the perfect size for pysankarstvo.  The church lets me have them, and I use them when writing pysanky myself, and in classes.  I even melt down the extras for the beeswax.

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