HOT ! LMX_53 Synthetic Spermaceti Candles

Taper candles made from an admixture of soy-paraffin wax and synthetic spermaceti.

Each order contains 2 candles. 

This candle is a research product originating in archival work on Nantucket independence/secession, revisionist projects exploring Angloid Mode of Production (AMP) and regimes of autarky-bound whaling economies (1582-1848)    

Spermaceti, a crystalline wax found in the heads of sperm whales, served as the vital substance lubricating the transition between tribal regimes of AMP on the coast of North America and burgeoning yankee industrialism. This mysterious substance whose purpose inside the whale’s head is still unknown, bound the secessionist protestant mystics of Nantucket with the creolized proto-factories of Boston.*     

Illegal since 1974, whale spermaceti has been replaced by a synthetic version which has been in production for many years, filling an essential market for cosmetic products that relied on the original. We endeavored to refit the results of our research into whale trade physiognomy to reintroduce (synthetic) spermaceti candles, taking formal insight from original modes of manufacture and consumption.  

*Further reading:  Holtz, Destry., and LMX ULTD. “From Whales to Fur: Tracking Aesthetic and Martial Cultures among Early Colonial Material Economies.” Patchwork Ecologies: New Perspectives on Modern Dwarf States, edited by Vitaly Sayles and Kathrine Witten. UAlberta Press, 2016, pp. 133-47.