Original vs. Toluene Free
The Briwax Original formula contains the solvent Toluene and the Toluene Free formula contains the solvents Xylene and Naphtha. Solvents are necessary in the formulation of Briwax because without them Briwax would just be a hard chunk of wax, almost unusable.
Toluene has a high aroma factor, a strong smell, and some people love it and some hate it. The Toluene Free formula has a much lower aroma; it smells more like a dry cleaning solvent.
Briwax Original uses toluene mainly because it dissolves the beeswax 100%. So even if Briwax is liquid it will still work as intended. Toluene is also an excellent grease and grime cleaner. As Briwax is used on old antique pieces, the solvent is really at work cleaning off the old oxidized surface. Toluene is an ingredient in ink, so if you ever have a problem with an ink stain, Briwax can help...actually it will be the solvent removing the stain. Toluene is also a very fast evaporator. In most applications, the solvent will evaporate in less than a minute. This is a fact of solvents that the faster they evaporate the stronger the smell.
The Briwax toluene-free formula is a blend of Xylene and Naphtha. This formula will take the solvents longer to evaporate, approximately 15-20 minutes, and the aroma will decrease or not smell as much. Also this formula will not dissolve all the waxes 100%, so if using in the middle of a hot summer you should cool the wax first.
The beeswax that is used in Briwax comes from Australia and New Zealand and is of the highest quality. The Carnauba wax that is used only comes from South America. This wax is scrapped from the leaves of certain palm trees and is refined to be an extremely hard wax. The blending of these two waxes is what gives Briwax it museum quality shine. The softer beeswax is the preservative and the harder carnauba wax is the shine.
