I have had good experiences with gardening waxes. Gardeners use them to treat trees during grafting. I have no idea about a composition of these waxes. They have similar qualities as beeswax and they are available here in the Czech republic in at least three colours. They are cheap and come in block form.

There have already been a discussions about using paraffin for encaustic painting (on some of the internet forums, etc). Many different types of paraffin waxes exist and some of them have even higher melting points than beeswax. A variety of flash points for paraffin waxes are also offered in very wide range, both lower and higher when compared to beeswax. Paraffin is not usually recommended by encaustic painters because of its brittleness. Moreover paraffin fumes are unpleasant and more toxic than beeswax fumes.

On the other hand, paraffin waxes can have some specific and significant advantages:

• can be colourless, very transparent and  brilliant
• does not develop a paler complexion, dusty-looking film called a "bloom" on it's surface

The transparency of colourless or slightly coloured paraffin waxes will allow the creation of many transparent and overlapping layers. It is not possible to acheive the same effect with beeswax or commercial encaustic waxes. This effect is very suitable for creating clouded sky or water surfaces, for example. (see examples: Hope, Biblical landscape)

The transparency of the paraffin wax layers also allows using underpainting with oil colours or other media. The underpainting can be covered with a thin layer of colourless or slightly coloured paraffin wax. I also use oil colours underpainting, frequently to sketch out and harmonise colours of the picture at the beginning.