Sealing wax

In the Middle Ages, sealing wax was typically made of beeswax and "Venice turpentine", a greenish-yellow resinous extract of the European larch tree.

From the 16th century it was compounded of various proportions of shellac, turpentine, resin, chalk or plaster, and colouring matter (often vermilion, or red lead), but not necessarily beeswax.

The stick is melted at one end (but not ignited or blackened), or the granules heated in a spoon, normally using a flame, and then placed where required, usually on the flap of an envelope.

[4] It was gradually replaced by other materials, like plasticine, but according to Nobel Laureate Patrick Blackett, "at one time it might have been hard to find in an English laboratory an apparatus which did not use red Bank of England sealing-wax as a vacuum cement.

Traditional sealing wax candles are produced in Canada, Spain, Mexico, France, Italy and Scotland, with formulations similar to those used historically.