Photography by Justine Hand.
In the colonial era, enterprising New Englanders quickly discovered that the wax produced by boiling the prolific gray berries that grew along the coast produced a clean, aromatic flame, and thus the bayberry candle was born.
Though it was eventually replaced by mass produced waxes and commercial scents, the romance of the humble bayberry taper endures.
The finished product; read on for step-by-step instructions.
A common sign of September on Cape Cod, the branches of a female bayberry bush are covered with ripe berries, identified by their blue-gray hue.
A native to the coast of New England, bayberries love the dry, sandy soil near the beach.
About two pounds into it, I started to realized why colonial women quickly abandoned this practice.
A detail of our berries shows their lovely, heathery hue.
Boiling the berries two pounds at a time. (Because I was not actually relying on this paltry sum of wax to light my home, I found it pretty satisfying to watch the little bubbles of wax emerge.)
Yet another step: In order to get all the plant bits out, after you extract the cooled wax from the water, you will need to place it in a pan, melt it again, and then strain it as shown here.
The lovely results: Solvi holds our yield from about two pounds of berries.
Besides the bayberry wax, here’s what else you’ll need: melting can, beeswax, a wick (available at Brushy Mountain Bee Farm; $11.50 per roll) and something round, like a pencil, to use for dipping.
Using a large soup can, I melted my bayberry wax with one pound of beeswax, available at Brushy Mountain Bee Farm; $7.50 per pound.
The candles begin to take shape.
A lovely shade of green.
I made a simple drying rack using a couple of sets of chopsticks held in place under a cutting board at the counter’s edge.
This part was really fun.
Wrapped in a little hemp from John Derian ($10) and some gold and cotton ribbon from Angela Liguori ($9 for 5 yards), my handmade candle are ready for gifting.
Extracting the wax: If you want to cure the 2 pounds of bayberry wax yourself, you need to collect from 12 to 16 pounds of berries.
Hand-Dipped Bayberry Candles
One recipe said, “About one moving box full” (!). After you collect the berries, pick over the batch to remove most of the leaves and stems. At this point the wax will have a lot of plant bits in it. (I used a ramekin lined with aluminum foil so I could easily remove the wax after it cooled.).
Dipping the candles: To make two candles at a time, measure a piece of wick that is 2.5 times the depth of the pan. Repeat this process until a candle is the desired width.