Beeswax tealights - we put Queen B (and the others) to the test

Recently I was at a friend's housewarming. (wow, there are a million ways I could go with that intro!) I was introduced to someone as running a business called Queen B blah blah blah! The woman (who I had never met before) exclaimed excitedly that she had recently been on our website and that our candles were 'divine'. I asked the next obvious questions - "What is your name?" (because I process all the orders myself, I would have recognised the name) and "What did you order?". She looked a little embarrassed. Turns out she didn't order from us! I was fascinated. It is seldom that I get to meet someone who has been on our website who could tell me completely independently what s/he thought and why s/he didn't order. She told me that she had ended up ordering from one of our "competitors" (who she named) because they had 100 x 8-9 hour tealights which were cheaper than ours. I was a little shocked to be honest. I hadn't realised that they had launched a new product. Before we made beeswax tealights, I had burned hundreds of the tealights from the Northern NSW maker and they had never burned for longer than 5-6 hours. Being the nerd that I am, I looked up the website as soon as I got home. Mmmmm 5-6hr tealights gone and now reading "8-9 hour" tealights (which looked EXACTLY the same - a little larger than our 4 hour tealight).

I bought some. At the same time I bought some of the tealights from the WA manufacturer whose name keeps coming up. Well, they say that a picture speaks a thousand words. Here's what I found. I performed 4 tests, then shocked at what I was seeing, bought time lapse photography software and filmed it so that you could see too. Here's the summary from the last 10 seconds of the video. Tealight Test # 1 WA Manufacturer

"4 hr" tealight - $15 (box of 10) = $1.50 ea @ 3.17 hrs = 47c/hr
"7 - 8 hr" tealight - $20 (box of 10) = $2.00ea @5.25 hrs = 38c/hr

Queen B

"4 hr" tealight - $20 (box of 9) = $2.22 ea @ 5.58 hrs = 40c/hr
"8 - 9 hr" tealight - $25 (box of 9) = $2.77 ea @ 8.25 hrs = 34c/hr

Northern NSW Manufacturer

"8 - 9hr" tealight - $15 (box of 5) - $3.00ea @ 4.67hrs = 64c/hr

Queen B tealights are the cheapest beeswax tealights to burn per hour (based on true burn time rather than claimed burn time) and are the only tealights to live up to their promised burn times. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByzeQneHyEg The issue with the WA tealights is to do with their beeswax still being too dirty and the wick too large. The Northern NSW one burns well. Having said that, I can't see how it would ever burn for 8-9 hours being the size it is. In fact the Northern NSW tealight weighs less than the Queen B 4 hour tealight. Always interested to hear your thoughts and feedback... post a comment or pop me an email. It's lovely to have a conversation with someone other than my mind!

Queen B beeswax candles are made with 100% pure Australian beeswax a pure cotton wick and copious amounts of hand made love. We stock beautiful and stylish candle holders, personalised candles, votive candles and pillar candles that nourish the human spirit and our environment.