Boston Gal's Open Wallet

Fantastic idea and nicely executed!

How did you get the candle jars fully cleaned out? Mine always seem to have leftover wax that doesn't melt before the wick runs out.

 

Hi Laura K,

Here is how I go about cleaning a spent candle jar:

1) Once candle no longer burns, I let cool completely and then place jar with remaining wax in freezer. Leave jar lid somewhere nearby so you can find it again - I put the lid on top of the freezer.

2) Wait a few days and then remove frozen jar from freezer and place on folded towel in sink (towel helps protect jar and sink and gives you a non-slippery surface to work).

3) Grab a butter knife and work around disk of frozen wax and jar sides. You may find yourself chipping away the wax - that is just what you want to do.

4) Once the wax disk is moving freely from the sides and bottom of the jar, brace the jar and use the butter knife in a straight up and down stabbing motion. I call this my psycho wax stabbing moment! With a few well executed stabs the wax disk should crack apart into a few chunks.

5) remove the wax chunks from the jar and place in a plastic zip lock baggie and set aside.

6) if the metal wick disk did not come out with the wax remove it now and rinse the jar to remove any wax crumbs.

7) Run the jar through the dishwasher. Usually one wash gives me a clean jar. My Bosch dishwasher does not use a dry heat - if yours does, I would turn the heat or dry cycle off.

8) When I just remove my hot and still damp but now clean jar from the dishwasher I find that any stickers left on the jar peel off easily. If you wait until the jar is bone dry removing the stickers is much harder.

Tip - I find that the longer I let the jar stay in the freezer the easier it is to crack the wax disk. This may have to do with my freezer being a defrost type - so the jar and wax disk go through mini freeze thaw type cycles in there.

Tip 2 - the left over wax is great to use as fire starters in your fireplace. The scented wax also gives you a nice bonus of fragrance when you burn them in the fireplace. If you don't have a fireplace, then the other use for the aromatic wax shards is as closet of drawer fresheners. Just bundle the wax in some netting and place near clothes.

Good Luck Laura K - hope this helps you salvage your spent candle jars to live another day as useful objects around your home!

 

Hi Boston Gal,
This is useful info. Perhaps it's worth repeating this mini-tutorial in its own post?

 

My uncle worked for a paint manufacturer and he said that you should open any cans of paint you don't intend to use and let them dry out. Just remove the lid and let dry. At that point, when it's a solid lump, the garbage men should take it.

Second, I have heard that to remove wax, place the jar open down a cookie sheet and place in the oven. Turn the oven on and the wax will melt right off.

 

Hi Peachy,

Thanks for the tip from your Uncle. The City of Boston hazardous waste webpage just mentions the types of paints accepted. It does not say wet or dry. I guess I would feel better about taking your Uncles tip if I could verify with the city first.

I do like your alternative tip for removing wax from the jars. But I think I prefer my method from a cheapskate view - why run your oven just to melt wax? But I believe your method would be faster (you don't have to wait days for the freezer to help the process along).

Hi MaryEliz,

I will have to take photos of the process next time I clean out a jar and dedicate a post to this subject. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

I have just successfully given away three of the jars of bath salts! I think I can now declare this an upcycling success story :)

 

You should be careful about running the jars through the dishwasher. You dont want wax or any excessive materials in a dishwasher. it can damage the machine or the pipes.

 

Hi Anonymous,

Good point! I have been doing this for years and so far no problems. Removing the wax when frozen does a really good job of getting rid of the majority of wax. But I do rinse the jar before putting in the dishwasher to remove any left over crumbs of wax.

I wash the smoky jar that is almost 100% wax free in the dishwasher along with whatever dirty dishes are stacked in there. Never had any problems with either my old Kitchenaid or my new Bosch machines.

But then I am generally cleaning out one candle jar every 3 or so months. So we are not talking a high volume here!

 

Thanks for the info on the wax removal process.

Re: your question on discarding paint, I'm pretty certain you can let it dry and put it in the trash (I work with a theater in Boston that does this all the time), but I'd only consider doing that with cans that are nearly empty. I think the hazardous waste disposal days are for cans that are not empty/not dried up.

There's also a paint donation program around Boston, but the details escape me. I may even have heard about it on your blog. That is an option if you have usable paint you no longer want.

 

I think this is what I was thinking of: http://www.cityofboston.gov/publicworks/recycling/paint_oil.asp.

Note, it also says if container is less than half full, let dry then put in trash.

 

I actually have a candle jar of salt in my bathroom -- though it's salt for my neti pot. It looks a lot better than the container the salt came in and I have a little bamboo scoop in it that I got from Teavana (probably way overpriced, I know, but it looks nice).

 

My Mom always cleaned candle holders in the oven, too. But right side up with a bit of newspaper inside to soak up the wax.