The scents are all from organic essential oil blends. We use organic compliant fruit and vegetable juice colorants. Our non-GMO organically grown waxes are manually harvested from small fair-trade farms in Brazil. ProForest certifies the sustainability and guarantees that the land has not been established at the expense of the tropical forest. The packaging is compostable.

The wood fixtures are made from SmartWood, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified. For coloring most manufacturers use synthetic aniline dyes. In our organic line we use NOS organic compliant fruit and food colors.

In 2009, we hope to be the first to offer USDA certified organic candles. Palm Wax™ is produced from palm fruit. It has many tiny flowers crowded on short branches that develop into a large cluster of oval fruits that are an inch and a half long, black when ripe and red at the base fruits. The outer fleshy portion of the fruit is steamed to soften the fruit, pressed to recover the palm oil, and then distilled to separate out the wax.

 How other candles are produced:

Paraffin wax is no longer produced in the US with most of it coming from China.

Petroleum waxes are derived from crude oil. First the crude oil is subjected to atmospheric pressure distillation. This step removes and separates all of the low boiling point components, such as gases, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene and diesel fuel. The waxy oil left over is dissolved in a solvent blend that typically contains ketones and toluene. The solution is then chilled to about –28 °C, so that the wax precipitates from the oil and can be removed using large rotary drum filters. The wax portion (slack wax) still contains a large amount of oil, up to as much as forty percent. It is dissolved in solvent again, reprecipitated and filtered. More chemical processes are used to remove unsaturated molecules.

In Aloha Bay's opinion, what you end up with is something that is as polluting as diesel fuel and full of chemical solvents. Furthermore, the cost of all petroleum products (and especially paraffin) is always increasing.