How-to: A Recipe for Natural Beeswax Wood Polish

Beeswax is good for so much more than just candlemaking and nature crafts. In particular, beeswax is an ingredient that I find myself using often in my homemade natural cleaning supplies. From my antique library table to my unfinished wood kitchen countertops to my children’s many wooden toys (especially the hand-stained wooden toys), my homemade beeswax wood polish keeps them all in good condition, with all-natural ingredients and scented with essential oils. Here’s my recipe:

The general ratio for beeswax wood polish is one part beeswax to three or four parts oil. I use a 1:3 ratio, because I like a polish that’s a little more solid. Even at 1:3, however, the polish is still quite soft, easy to dip into by hand and easy to spread.

For oil, you may use any oil that you prefer, as long as it’s shelf-stable. I use the same low-quality olive oil that I use in soapmaking, but other possibilities are coconut oil and jojoba oil–I imagine that you could even use Crisco if you had a mind to.

To make enough wood polish to last my family a year, I first heat 1/3 cup of beeswax until melted. In my opinion, the easiest and safest ways to melt beeswax are in a crafts-dedicated crock pot (which you can find at a thrift store) or in a crafts-dedicated double boiler. If you fix yourself up a DIY double boiler, however, then you can melt your beeswax right in whatever glass jar you’ve chosen to hold the beeswax polish, saving yourself an extra step and a dirty dish.

As soon as the 1/3 cup beeswax is melted, combine it with one cup oil, directly into the jar that you’ll be using to store the beeswax wood polish. I use wide-mouthed jam jars from last year’s canning season, but a variety of reclaimed glass jars or decorative tins would also suffice.

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