Boy Smells rebuilt the inside of its candles in 2024 and left most of the outside alone. Same scent names on the shelf. Same notes printed on the label. A different wax under the wick. Coverage of the change reported that no notes were added or removed, and that the concentrations were simply redistributed. The brand also publishes an estimated burn time of 110 hours for the updated formula, well above the roughly 50 hours commonly cited for the older standard size.
What customers say on Google
View on Google
That is a big shift for a candle whose fragrance list did not move. It also tells you something useful: the wax, not the scent, is doing most of the work you notice in a room. Once you start reading wax that closely, you end up cross-shopping soy blends against single-ingredient waxes, which is how a lot of people find the hand-poured pure beeswax candles we make in New York in the first place.
You already know the one word answer, and it is not enough
Ask what is in a Boy Smells candle and the short answer is soy. The brand states its candles are made in the USA with a vegan, non-GMO, soy based wax blend. That much is published and easy to find.
The trouble is that "soy" describes a category, not a recipe. Soy wax is soybean oil that has been hydrogenated, which means hydrogen is forced into the oil to turn it from liquid into a soft solid. How hard that solid gets, how it holds fragrance, and how it sticks to glass all depend on the processing and on what else goes in the pot.
So the word on the tin tells you the base. It does not tell you the ratio. And the ratio is the part that decides how the candle behaves on your shelf.
What a wax blend is actually solving
Pure soy is difficult to work with. It shrinks as it cools, it pulls away from the glass, and it can frost into pale patches on the surface. Makers add other waxes and oils to fix those problems.
Coconut wax is a common partner, and older Boy Smells listings described a soy and coconut blend. Coconut is softer and lower melting, which helps a candle throw scent at lower heat. Some blends add stearic acid or other hardeners to firm the mix back up.
None of this is sinister. It is chemistry doing a job. But it explains why two candles that both say soy can burn nothing alike, and why a reformulation aimed at reducing tunneling and soot could triple a published burn estimate without touching the fragrance.
Here is the moment most people run into it. You buy a good candle, burn it three or four times, and there is a thick ring of unmelted wax welded to the glass with a narrow hole down the middle. Half the jar is stuck to the wall. That is a wax and wick problem, and it is the reason we pour a single wax with a high melting point and pair it with a wooden wick. Our Room Service beeswax candle is 100% beeswax, no blend, with notes of Saffron, White Tea, Purple Peonies, Orchid, Tobacco, Vanilla, Almond Milk, and Tonka Bean. The 80 Hours size is $65 and the 40 Hours size is $32.
So here is what is in a Boy Smells candle
I am listing these in a deliberate order: from the parts you already checked on the website, down to the one almost nobody checks. The last item is where most of the difference lives.
1. The wax
Current formula: a vegan, non-GMO, soy based blend, farmed in the US and poured in the US. Older versions were described as a soy and coconut blend. Some very early listings referenced coconut wax with beeswax, but the current candle is soy based.
2. The fragrance
Boy Smells states its candles are free from phthalates and parabens. The house style is well known: traditionally masculine notes like cedarwood and smoke set against florals and gourmands. That combination is the whole reason the brand has fans, and it is a genuinely good perfumery point of view.
3. The wick
Lead-free cotton, unbleached. Cotton wicks are the industry default. They work, they are cheap, and they are quiet. A wooden wick behaves differently because it burns as a flat edge rather than a point, which spreads heat sideways across the wax pool.
4. The dye
The brand states no added dyes. That matters more than people assume. Colorant is extra material in the melt pool with no job except appearance.
5. The thing nobody checks: how many ingredients there are
Every item above can be clean and the candle can still be a blend of four or five materials chosen to balance each other out. A single-ingredient wax removes that whole conversation. There is no ratio to get right, because there is only one thing in the pot. Beeswax comes out of the hive already solid, already stable, and takes no chemical processing to become candle wax.
How the three main waxes actually compare
| Wax | Where it comes from | Processing | Burn behavior |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beeswax (what MBur pours) | Honeybees, as a byproduct of honey production | Filtered. No chemical conversion. Single ingredient, 100% beeswax | Highest melting point of the common waxes, which is why our 80 Hours size burns up to 80 hours. Clean burn, no soot from the wax itself |
| Soy and soy blends | Soybean oil | Hydrogenated to turn oil into a solid. Often blended with coconut wax or hardeners | Soft, lower melting point. Good scent throw at low heat. Prone to frosting and to pulling away from glass unless blended |
| Coconut and coconut blends | Coconut oil | Hydrogenated and refined, then usually blended because it is too soft alone | Very soft, melts easily, strong throw. Rarely used on its own |
| Paraffin | Crude oil | Oil is distilled, the heavy slack wax is separated, then deoiled and bleached until it is white and odorless | Cheap, holds heavy fragrance loads, and produces visible soot. Once you follow those refining steps, paraffin is petroleum waste cleaned up for sale, full stop |
What that difference sounds like from a customer
People rarely describe wax. They describe how a room feels after two hours of burning.
"I love these candles. No headache or feeling nauseous like the Bath & Body candles with all the extra chemicals. In addition, I love the package and how carefully everything was wrapped. Im saving the wrapping paper to utilize during the xmas holiday."
Jason H., 5 stars, Room Service Pure Beeswax Candle
If Boy Smells is your reference point, the closest thing on our shelf in spirit is Touch Grass, which runs green and woody rather than sweet. Notes: Fig, Black currant, Galbanum, Coconut, Davana, Cedarwood, Amber, Orris, Tonka bean. Same trick of putting cedar under something fresh, poured in a single wax with a wooden wick. It comes in the 40 Hours size at $32 and the 80 Hours size at $65.
If you have asthma, allergies, or another respiratory condition, follow your doctor's guidance on what you burn indoors. A candle is a decision about your air, and your doctor knows your history.
How to burn either candle so the wax does not fight you
Boy Smells publishes care instructions, and they are good advice for any candle in glass. We tell our customers the same things.
Give the first burn three hours. Wax has a memory. If the surface does not melt fully to the edge on the first light, the candle will tunnel down that same narrow path forever.
Trim the wick to a quarter inch before every light. A long wick means a tall flame, and a tall flame means smoke and uneven melting.
Stop at four hours. Past that, the flame gets unstable and the glass gets hotter than it needs to be.
Retire the candle when a quarter inch of wax is left. Burning a nearly empty vessel puts heat straight into the glass.
Keep the room ventilated. Cracking a window is the cheapest air quality upgrade there is, no matter what wax you are burning.
But I have burned soy candles for years and nothing bad happened
Fair. Plenty of soy and soy blend candles are made carefully, and Boy Smells is one of the better ones on ingredient disclosure. Phthalate-free and paraben-free with no added dyes is a real standard, and a lot of the shelf does not clear it.
The case for beeswax is not that soy is dangerous. It is that beeswax removes variables. One ingredient, no hydrogenation, no blend ratio, no hardener. If you want to know exactly what is in your candle, the shortest ingredient list wins by default.
But beeswax costs more
It does, per jar. Beeswax is limited by how much honey gets harvested, and it cannot be manufactured on demand. So compare hours instead of jars. Our 80 Hours size is $65, which works out to about 81 cents per hour of burn time. That is the honest way to price a candle you actually use.
Frequently asked questions
Are Boy Smells candles made with soy wax?
Yes. The brand states its candles use a vegan, non-GMO, soy based wax blend, farmed and manufactured in the USA. If you want a wax that is not blended at all, every candle we make is 100% beeswax, including Room Service, our bestseller.
Do Boy Smells candles contain phthalates or parabens?
No. The brand states its candles are free from phthalates and parabens, with no added dyes. We hold the same line: MBur uses non-toxic, phthalate-free fragrance oils and no chemical dyes, in Touch Grass and in every other scent we pour.
How long do Boy Smells candles burn?
The updated wax formula carries an estimated burn time of 110 hours. Older versions of the standard size were commonly cited around 50 hours. Our sizes are stated in hours on the label so there is no guessing: 40 Hours at $32 and 80 Hours at $65 across the scent range.
What kind of wick do Boy Smells candles use?
Unbleached, lead-free cotton. We use wooden wicks instead. A wooden wick burns as a flat edge, so heat spreads sideways across the surface, and it crackles softly while it burns. One customer, Portia Darby, put the result plainly: "Candle burned slowly and was exactly the amount of hours the company said it would burn."
Is beeswax better than a soy blend?
For burn time and ingredient simplicity, yes. Beeswax has the highest melting point of the common candle waxes, so it burns slower, and it needs no chemical conversion to become wax. Soy blends can throw scent strongly at lower heat, which some people prefer. Read the wax line and the fragrance line on both, then decide.
What to do with all this
Boy Smells publishes more about its ingredients than most brands, and the 2024 reformulation was aimed squarely at the problems people complain about: tunneling, soot, and weak throw. That is a brand paying attention. The gap that stays open is the blend itself, because a blend is always a set of trade-offs you cannot see from the outside.
Before you buy anything, read our candle care guide. It will save the candle you already own, whoever made it.
Then, if you want to try a single-ingredient wax, start with the 40 Hours size of Room Service at $32, because it lets you live with the scent for a full 40 hours before committing to the $65 size. Emotionally, it is the one that makes a living room smell like a good hotel lobby at check-in. Logically, it is 100% beeswax with a wooden wick and phthalate-free fragrance, and the reviews back up the burn time we print. Tiffany Gordon wrote: "This candle permeates every corner of the room. Cant say enough about how impressed I am with this company."
One plain reason to act now: beeswax supply follows the honey harvest, so scents go out of stock by size rather than all at once, and the 80 Hours size is usually the first to go.
Shop the Room Service pure beeswax candle, 40 Hours for $32
Related reading
