boiled off the wax from some bayberries! candles of bayberry wax are supposed to be useful for good luck and money spells.
I learned about this process of wax gleaning from a candle-making revolutionary war re-enactor, who told me that these candles were less common than lard-based ones, but higher quality. Secondary in quality only to whale blubber lanterns.
This is so cool!! @witchposting how did you do this??
Omg I’d be so fascinated to learn how this is done
It’s pretty easy! I’m lucky enough to live near a beach where these plants proliferate. So even though the ratio of wax yield to berries is pretty low, (like 1/16 of the weight of berries you collect will be wax,) I was able to harvest a good amount without disrupting the plant’s role as a winter food source for birds.
To get the wax, you just bring the berries to a boil in water. The waxy coating will melt off of the berries and float to the surface of the water, and when the water cools, the wax hardens and remains on top. There will be some berries and twigs and dirt embedded in the wax at that point, so you have to re-melt the wax and pour it through some sort of fine metal mesh to get all of those out.
It’s also important that you use pots and containers that you don’t mind having wax stuck to–maybe forever. And keep in mind that you don’t want wax going down your household drains.
During the purifying process, what I did was just cut some aluminum beer cans in half and poured the hot wax through a sieve into those. That way, if the wax was stubborn after cooling, it could just be easily cut out of the can with scissors.ALSO you will notice, if you try this, that the water you boiled the berries in turns a deep rosy red and has a beautiful aroma. You can drink it! Or reduce it and use it to make a syrup or something. I’ve read that it has been used in folk medicine as a tonic and to treat diarrhea. Also the root bark apparently has medicinal uses. Plants!!!!
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The Carving Witch 