Carnauba Wax (flakes)

These sticky, golden flakes are powdered and bleached carnauba wax, made from the leaves of the Copernica Cerifera palm tree that grows in northern Brazil. The colour and quality of this wax is determined by the age of the leaves and the process of extraction, and it can vary from pale yellow to dark-greenish brown. What we have here is one of the purest and highest quality forms, suitable for making a glossy and heat-resistant Charlotte Tilbury lipstick as well as for enhancing the gloss of your apple or the paintwork detailing of your car. 

Waxes are made by almost all plants: they form an essential part of the cuticle; a thin, water-resistant layer that covers plants from above ground level. This waxy layer is most visible on the smooth, glossy leaves of something like a camelia or lotus plant, as well as familiar kale. They can be extracted from plants as varied as carnauba palms, castor beans, sugar cane stems, soya beans, sunflower seeds, coconuts, rice husks and more. There’s a whole host of techniques for doing this, including solvent extraction or beating, drying, heating and filtering. 

Carnauba wax is amongst the hardest of the waxes, which makes it popular for coating fruit and veg with a protective shield. It used to be used by conservators to preserve metal heritage objects and sculptures, but there has since been a move towards using highly controllable synthetic alternative like microcrystalline wax, as they don’t produce organic acids that can damage the metal. Carnauba wax, beeswax and petroleum waxes are also used for the wax crayons that are responsible for the daily scribblings of children all over the world, as well as the work of artist Cy Twombly. Carnauba is strong but very brittle, so the next time your crayon snaps, blame this guy!

Check out our blog post for a longer read about the weird and wonderful properties of waxes, including beeswax (the glandular produce of the humble honeybee), earth wax that is mined from seams in the ground and and artificial eye wax that is used to make prosthetic glass eyes.