I've not used any hard wax oil finish. I'm surprised reading this [1] though that it offers "Great wear-, water- and heat resistance". But I guess that's from the company also claiming that Monocoat only takes one coat. But, what I'm understanding from that link is also that maybe the curing accelerators have VOCs so maybe the hard wax oils without accelerators don't have the VOC content (?)
What I was looking at was a different manufacturer’s product which talks about how they use vegetable oil which seems intriguing. I’m going to use the espresso wax / stain and see how it turns out with different numbers of coats https://www.interbuild.shop/route/product/product?product_id...
The vegetable oil stood out to me too. That Bob Flexner book emphasizes that oils other than tung and BLO don't cure but instead go rancid which is why they're not used. (Which is also why BLO is boiled because straight linseed oil doesn't cure) I wonder what that process of heating the vegetable oil with the wax does that just heating vegetable oil alone doesn't?
As a side note, I like the low VOC aspect. I've used pure tung oil from Woodcraft before and it doesn't have a strong smell but it give me the absolute worst headache I've ever had. Worse than any exposure to a varnish or paste wax or something I know has VOCs in it.
Good luck with that product, it looks very interesting!
[1]: https://www.rubiomonocoatusa.com/blogs/blog/what-is-hardwax-...