Inside modern terms, wax is an inexactly defined term typically understood to exist as the substance by owning properties similar to beeswax, namely

plastic (malleable) at normal ambient temperatures a melting point above approximately 45 °C (which differentiates waxes from either fats and oils) a comparatively moo viscosity when melted (unlike many plastics) insoluble inside water hydrophobic

Waxes can be natural or even unreal. Additionally to beeswax, carnauba (a vegetable wax) & paraffin (a earth wax) come normally found waxes which occur naturally. Ear wax is a sticky substance found in the individual ear. A select few unreal materials that exhibit similar properties come too described when wax or even waxen.

Chemically, the wax can be an ester of ethylene glycol (ethan-1,2-diol) and ii fatty acids, as opposed to the fat which is an ester of glycerin (propan-1,2,3-triol) and iii fatty acids. It might too become an ester of the fatty acid with a fatty alcohol. These are the nature and severity of lipid.

Wax types
Animal and insect waxes
Beeswax - produced by honeybees Chinese wax - produced by insects Coccus ceriferus Shellac wax - from lac insect Coccus lacca Spermaceti - from head cavities & blubber of the Sperm Whale Lanolin (wool wax) - from a sebaceous glands of sheep

Vegetable waxes
Bayberry wax - from a surface of the berries of the bayberry shrub Candelilla wax - from Mexican bush Euphorbia cerifera & E. antisyphilitica Carnauba wax - the "queen of waxes" from either leaves of Carnauba Palm Castor wax - catalytically hydrogenated castor oil Esparto wax - a byproduct of making paper from either esparto grass Japan wax - a vegetable tallow (not a avowedly wax), from either the berries of Rhus & Toxicodendron species Jojoba oil - pressed from seeds of the jojoba tree, a replacement for spermaceti Ouricury wax - from a Brazilian Feather Palm Rice bran oil - obtained from either rice bran

Mineral waxes
Ceresin waxes Montan wax - extracted from lignite and brown coal Ozocerite - found around wood coal beds Peat waxes

Petroleum waxes
Paraffin wax - made of long-chain alkane hydrocarbons Microcrystalline wax - with super fine crystalline structure

Synthetic waxes
Polyethylene waxes - based on polyethylene Fischer-Tropsch waxes Chemically modified waxes - usually esterified or saponified substituted amide waxes polymerized α-olefins