I am a candle lover. I’d be okay if you called it an obsession. I’ll never be a cat lady, but I may just turn out to be a candle lady. Oh, you get it? Okay, moving on.
With the high rate at which I burn through candles (no pun intended), I am always left with almost-empty candle jars. You know, the ones that have a tiny amount of wax stuck on the bottom and a bit on the sides? I usually end up tossing the glass jars, each time kicking myself and wishing I knew how to remove the wax so I could use them!
Apparently, it never crossed my mind until yesterday to look on the wonderful world wide web for a little instruction on getting rid of said wax. Turns out it is literally one of the easiest projects I’ve ever tackled! Here’s what you do:
1. Grab the burned out candles you want to remove wax from. (Like the printable in the frame behind them? You can print it for free here!)
2. Boil water.
Check out that yummy college-clean burner! (We’ve tried everything to clean it–don’t know what the tenants before us did, but it is permanently nasty!)
3. Pour boiling water into the candle jars.
4. Wait. Really, wait. For an hour or two or until the wax has risen to the top and hardened.
It’s actually really fun to watch…looks like a lava lamp! (And it smells super wonderful!)
5. Tap your fingers, watch TV, run around in circles, or take a nap until your jars look like the photo below. The wax should be at the top of the jar and hardened.
6. Using a butter knife, cut the wax in half and remove it.
7. Carefully dump the remaining water out and scrub the last bits of wax with a sponge, brush, or brillo pad.
8. Fill up your newly empty jars with whatever you like & admire your work!
I put cotton balls in the big jar and thumbtacks in the little one. They’re so perfect! What a fun and easy project.
Have any of you removed wax from your old candles? Have you used the boiling water method? The freezer method? How’d it work out for you?
Thanks for sharing! I’ve cracked a few candles after trying to use a knife to jab out all the wax. I’ll be using this from now on!
Thanks for your comment! This method really works, as you can easily see in the photos! Good luck 🙂
xo,
B
This looks so fun! I’ve got an entire cabinet of used up candles that are just calling my name! Thanks!
Thanks for reading! And I did too–so glad this method is simple and effective!
xo,
B
Awesome! I’ve had the same problem – definitely trying this! Thanks for sharing 🙂
#Candleloverproblems …glad there’s a solution!
xo,
B
This was a great post. If you would like a tip on cleaning those burner rings, make a baking soda paste. Soak the rings in super hot water then rub the paste on, let sit several,minutes and then scrub with a mesh Brillo. You will be amazed!
Ooo gotta try that! Thanks for stopping by!
xo,
b
My family used to clean military housing for inspection when people moved out. Our go to method for both the rings on the stove and the oven racks is as follows. Choose a bag close to the size of the piece you are cleaning (we reused either gallon or 2gallon sized zip locks for rings) then trash bags for oven racks. Place rings/racks in bag, pour in 1/4 a 1/2 cup regular household ammonia and seal. Leave bags for a few hours to overnight for the ones that are really bad. Leave bags on fairly flat surface (we put them in the bathtubs) turn bags over after several hours. Keep in mind it is actually the fumes and not the liquid ammonia that melts the greasy gunk. Make sure your are in a well ventilated area when you open the bag but once opened you should be able to just rinse with plain water and wash with dawn dish soap. No scrubbing needed! One note: if your stove rings are the cheap ones they may turn dark if you leave them in the bags with the ammonia too long – but, they will be clean with no greasy residue!
Another trick for easy house cleaning is removing globes from lights and place them on the top rack of the dishwasher. Run the dishwasher on a light cycle and viola sparkling clean glass globes with no streaks!
Hope these simple timesavers work as good for you as they did for our family!
What AWESOME tips, Tonya! Thank you so much for sharing!!
xo,
b