Illuminating Origins: Who Invented Candles?

goldrushwax
Jul 9, 2022
2 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

As a candlemaker (chandler) that also loves history, one day I wondered to myself who invented the candle? I recalled a field trip from middle school where a woman dressed in pioneer garb was demonstrating how early settlers made candles by dipping the wicks into the wax. There were no thermometers, scales, beakers, none of the modern tools I use to create candles. I fired up Google and started to dig in to answer the question, who invented the candle?

Although the Romans are given credit, there is no one person that invented candles which have been used for over 5000 years!

Candles in the Ancient World:

Romans dipped rolled papyrus into animal fat or beeswax.
Egyptians soaked reeds in animal fat (tallow) for a torch.
Early Chinese molded wax made from insects and seeds with a rice paper wick.
The Chinese would also dry a fish, called the candlefish, to burn as their body fat during spawning was so high they would burn. I will not be making a candlefish scented candle!
India was creating a wax from boiling the fruits of the cinnamon tree, I vote they should be given credit for the best smelling candle of Ancient Times.

Ancient style Roman dipped candles — *Ancient Roman-style dipped candles made from papyrus and tallow*

https://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/candles2.html

Middle Ages & Colonial Candle-making

The most common wax was still tallow (animal fat) but churches and upper class could afford the cleaner burning, better smelling beeswax candles that were introduced.
All candles were made by dipping until the 1400's when a French inventor created a mold for taper candles.

Dipped colonial candles on a drying rack — Colonial Style Dipped Candles

Colonial Times

Candles were still made by dipping and using tallow
For a time the colonists were making wax with berries of bayberry bushes which produced a sweet smelling wax, but the process was tedious.
Soon a new type of wax came along, spermaceti, a wax obtained by crystallizing sperm whale oil which became abundant, did not smell bad and produced a brighter light, it was harder than tallow or beeswax.

Author Elaine Marie Cooper Has a great post about candles in Colonial America at Heroes, Heroines, and History

The Industrial Age to Modern Day

advances were made such as the invent of paraffin wax in the 1850's.
Synthetic paraffin wax was introduced commercially after World War II as one of the products obtained in the Fischer–Tropsch reaction, which converts coal gas to hydrocarbons
With the invention of the lightbulb the popularity of candles declined until the 1980's when they surged as a decorative home accessory.
As electricity took over, candles flickered out—until they made a big comeback as decorative and aromatic essentials in modern homes.

Candles Today (and Gold Rush Wax)

Today, more than a billion pounds of wax are used annually to produce candles in over 10,000 scents.

But here at Gold Rush Wax Co., our roots go deeper—blending history, storytelling, and clean-burning wax into every jar. Founded in 2021 in California’s Gold Country, we bring the legacy of the Gold Rush into modern homes through our thoughtfully crafted, small-batch candles.