Wax play is a form of sensual play involving warm or hot wax usually dripped from candles or ladled onto a person's naked skin. Wax play may be combined with other BDSM or sexual activity.
Pure paraffin wax melts at around 130 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit (54 to 57 Celsius). Adding stearine makes the wax harder and melt at a higher temperature. Adding mineral oil makes the wax softer and melt at a lower temperature.
Soft candles in glass jars usually have mineral oil in their blend and burn cooler at around 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 C), Pillar candles are mostly paraffin and burn warmer at around 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 C).
Taper candles have lots of stearine and burn hotter still at around 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71 C). Beeswax candles burn about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 C) hotter than equivalent paraffin candles. Although there are many web sites that repeat the same advice that color additives make candles burn hotter, actual experiments performed by two different researchers show that this is usually not the case. Increasing the distance the wax falls by 1 meter will drop the temperature about 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 C) at the risk of splatter.
If ordinary candles are too hot, a special wax blend with a high concentration of mineral oil can be heated to lower temperatures in a crock pot or double boiler.
Read more about Wax Play: Safety Notes
Famous quotes containing the words wax and/or play:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“Play is a major avenue for learning to manage anxiety. It gives the child a safe space where she can experiment at will, suspending the rules and constraints of physical and social reality. In play, the child becomes master rather than subject.... Play allows the child to transcend passivity and to become the active doer of what happens around her.”
—Alicia F. Lieberman (20th century)