Today I’m going to show you how to clean out candle jars because I always feel like it’s such a shame to throw away (or recycle) the empty jars when they can be so pretty.
We’ve been lucky enough to go to the US a few times over the last couple of years and each time we go, Miss Frugal stocks up on her favourite Bath and Bodyworks candles which come in pretty jars with lids.
Once she’s used them, it feels like a waste to get rid of the pretty little candle jars so we’re experts now in how to clean out a candle jar and we have them all over as storage jars now. I’ve just cleaned out the Hot Cocoa and Cream candle jar so I thought I’d show you exactly how we do it in case you have any pretty candle jars that you could re-use.
This is what we started with – an almost burned down to the bottom candle with a random pink stain that I have no idea how to explain. It was at the point where the flame would burn out in a couple of minutes when we lit it which meant it was absolutely ready for a new lease of life.
First of all, you need to pour hot (not quite boiling) water into your candle jar to about two-thirds of the jar to melt any wax that’s left in the candle jar. I leave it to do its thing for a couple of minutes and then I usually use a wooden skewer to give the wax a bit of a poke about just to speed up the melting process.
Once I’ve poked and scraped the majority of the wax from the bottom of the candle jar, I just leave it until the water has completely cooled down and the wax has settled on the top of the water. The boiling water melts the wax which rises to the top of the liquid and hardens again on the top as the water in the jar cools down.
After you’ve removed the wax disc from the top (which is the most satisfying thing ever) then you can pour out the water and you should find that all of the wax has come away from the bottom and the sides. You can then remove the little metal discs that the wicks are attached to – the Bath and Bodyworks ones just come away but some cheaper candles that we’ve done this on have had the discs proper glued into the bottom so I’ve had to scrape them off with the back of a spoon and once or twice, they’ve been so stuck in that we’ve had to abandon our plans for the jar. 😞
I’m sure you could reuse the wax disc if you wanted to be super thrifty but I don’t bother if I’m honest – it’s enough for me just to have a lovely little jar to use for storage.
The Bath and Bodyworks ones are quite seasonal so we have a few with our Christmas decorations that we’ll pop Christmassy things in when we get them out of the loft and we have a couple of Autumn themed ones that we pop fir cones and fairy lights in.
The rest of them are dotted about the house as plant pots, pen pots, bobble storage and all kinds of other things.
They’re also great to give as gifts with something inside them if they come with a lid – maybe a mini pamper hamper with a facemask, a nail varnish and some other makeup minis would be good in one.
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