I don’t think I’m alone when I say that Candles are a staple in my home. They’re so cozy and the perfect way to make a room feel more comfortable.
But if you go through candles as quickly as I do, you’ve probably noticed that:
- There’s usually a good amount of wax that goes unused
- You’re left with several jars that you don’t know what to do with
Because I love candles, but hate creating waste, I came up with a way to use them that creates almost no waste.
How To Clean Out Your Candle Jars
There’s a couple ways that you can get the leftover wax out of your candles, but I find the easiest to be the boiling water method.
All you need to do for this method is pour hot (or boiling depending on type of wax) water into the candle jar, and wait for all of the wax to rise to the top of the jar. Once the wax cools completely you can pull the wax disc out of the container.
If your candle has a wick that is glued to the bottom of the jar, you may need to use pliers to gently remove it and that should be the only waste created in this process!
Using The Leftover Wax
I always thought that the wax leftover after using candles was such a waste, so I came up with an idea to use all of it instead of having to just throw it away.
If you’ve never heard of wax warmers they’re basically the same concept of candles, but without the wick and flame.
You might be thinking, “If wax warmers are essentially the less wasteful version of candles, why wouldn’t I just use that alone?”
Well there’s two reasons why I prefer to use them in conjunction: first, the wax used in the warmers almost always comes in plastic packaging and honestly, they just don’t have the same ambiance as candles in my opinion.
So how do you use them together? After you use the method above to get all of the wax out of your candles, simply put one of those wax discs into the warmer.
That’s it! Now you have an almost zero-waste way to use candles and make your whole home smell amazing. While the wax put in wax warmers won’t evaporate like traditional candles, this method still helps get every bit of use out of the leftover candle wax.
Ways To Reuse Candle Jars
Now that you’ve figured out how to avoid wasting wax from your candles, here’s a few ways you can reuse the jars after you’ve cleaned them out!
- Storing your wax cubes
- Holding Q-tips or Cotton Rounds
- Food Storage
- Drinking glasses
- Flower vase
- Pencil Jar
- Toothbrush Holder
- Plant Pot
I hope you’ll try out this idea the next time you use up one of your candles, and if you’re looking to buy eco-friendly candles then you can find my article on that here. Thank you for reading, have a lovely day!
Almost Eco-Friendly 