The other day I spent over 10 hours putting wax on my ceramics.
Why, you ask?
First, I want to let you in on a little secret. People often think that if the piece is waxed, it will not run or drip glaze. Or that it will prevent the piece from sticking to the kiln shelf. Unfortunately neither of these are true. The wax melts off long before the glaze changes into the glassy surface you are used to seeing. BUT there are reasons to wax your ceramics.
I wax most pieces so then I can dip them in my glazes. Then all I have to do is gently wipe off any beads of glaze that remain on the wax with a sponge. So not only am I wasting less glaze, but it makes cleanup a breeze.
But it is not all fun and games. Waxing can be very tedious depending on the piece and if you make a mistake it is very hard to fix. (read: pull your hair our hard!) This is because the bisqued ceramics are porous and suck up the wax like a sponge. So even if you scrape it off the surface, it still has a wax resist inside!
But once the waxing is done (10+ hours in my case), I can glaze my pieces with less effort which makes for a happier ceramic artist. Yay! 
