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From: Tim & Yvette Moyer
Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 13:06:59 -0500
Subject: Re: Beeswax Alternative

Lynda Schemansky wrote:

>Beeswax is an animal product.

Seriously? I thought that bees were insects (I supposed that they are
"animal" as diffrentiated from "vegetable" or "mineral"), and that the wax
they produced was created from pollen they collected from flowers. While
this might technically qualify it as an "animal product" (since it is
produced by these animals), it hardly seems to fall into the same catagory
as, say, lard, or bacon grease. And since the only two alternatives we
seem to have are 1) synthetic and 2) not, it would seem to be less harmful
than, say, urethane, or another petroleum distillate.

All the MSDS material I can find on beeswax pertains to possible burns from
exposure to heated beeswax, and one mentions that solid material might be
an "eye irritant" (get a chunk of beeswax in my eye, and I'd be irritated
too).

Yes, I wouldn't to coat my harp combs with earwax (definitely yuck, have
you ever tasted that stuff?), but I think that reasonable caution does
allow for contact with beeswax. It certainly seems preferable to waxes
which are derived from petroleum, at least to me.

>Another nice thing about these animal derived products is that
>they are skin sensitizers. That means that you can expect them
>to lead to contact dermatitis

Well, be sure to let it cool down below the melting point before playing
the harp. All I'd expect long term contact to beeswaxed combed harps to
lead to is a great playing experience.

- -tim



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