Bees wax, I did a 15 minute dip at 150 degrees on the stove I read somewhere that they need to be rewaxed once in a while to really bring out the coloring and man I really cant believe how well this came out now I'm eyeballing the rest of them. Corked it and then I used my cork screw to hold it on the edges of the pot. Basically you just find a container large enough to dip your entire pipe and using the corkscrew to hold it down frees up your hands. I actually used a small coffee can to melt the wax on the stove.