wooden spoons and beeswax

the lady friend decided recently that all the wooden spoons in her house were gross and worn out. so we fixed 'em up! it was also a good excuse to make a new batch of my homebrew wood finish that i label as "soft wax."

here's the basic idea- melt some beeswax. stir in a measure of citrus oil. cool. done.

here's some specifics- by blending citrus oil into beeswax, you get a softened wax that can be applied with a rag and some elbow grease. then, as the citrus oil evaporates, you are left with a nice satin wax finish. maybe not the most durable or perfect finish, but a quick, all natural, easily rejuvenated one.

i think 2 parts wax to 1 part oil, by weight, is a good place to start. melt the wax in a double boiler made of the storage jar and a saucepan, turn off the stove (the citrus oil is super flammable!) and stir in the oil with a stick. seal the jar and let it cool. if you keep it closed between uses, it will stay soft a really long time.

note: don't try to make more wax in the same jar as you don't want to heat the oil. remember, even though it is made of fruit, the oil does give off more vapors when heated and those vapors are not particularly good for you, even when they aren't on fire.

so here are the spoons (and a cutting board) to be fixed up. we sat down with some files and sandpaper and our freshly minted wax and got to work.

and voila! can you tell from the pictures that they are better than they were before? because they are. promise. after a few days to cure, they are ready to resume service. anyway, i haven't used my wax on cooking spoons before, so i'm interested to see how they hold up. i also coaxed sarah into letting me finish a couple with a corn oil and citrus mix as a point of comparison. hooray for human test subjects!

also note: there are other recipes for "natural spoon oil" and the like online which i, personally, would avoid. mineral oil is a petroleum distillate and therefore doesn't fit my definition of natural. still, we have no proof that my solution is any better. so there's that.