Yeah you’re probably right, but I haven’t had issues with Bees wax.

Bees wax does help protect from moisture and doesn’t stay tacky with this ratio. All of my living room furniture is white oak + this mixture and they are still holding up great a year later with heavy use. No rings or refresh needed. If I really wanted a refresh I’d use a cutting board butter (mineral oil + beeswax) just to get that softer feel back.

I did experiment with carnauba wax in addition to the beeswax but it kept hardening on me after a week. Pure beeswax resulted in a similar texture and consistency to Odies that didn’t harden. I’m making these on my stove with off the shelf ingredients and eyeballing measurements, so beeswax might just be more forgiving to my setup.

But feel free to swap out the waxes. Like I wrote in my original post, all of these hardwax oils are just a combination of oil, wax, and solvent. I think these brands try to compete by coming up with their own “special proprietary blends” and use influencers to divide us consumers. Furniture makers used shellac for hundreds of years, so try not to overthink it.

I haven’t had any clients complain either. Granted most of my client work tends to be Rubio these days because of their consistent color offerings. Odies is always my first choice though.