How to Remove Wax From a Candle Jar to Give It a Second Life

You can’t cherish your favorite candle scent in perpetuity—assuming you’re actually burning it, and not hoarding it—but you can hold onto its jar and give it a new life for years to come. And frankly, sometimes the vessel is more worthwhile than the candle ever was in the first place; we’ve all purchased a good-looking, but hardly scented dud from Target or the dollar store before.

Removing the wax, wick, and burnt gunk from a candle jar sounds like one hell of a dirty job, but with the right technique, it can be a breeze. It’s also a low-effort way to upcycle those glass containers for other DIY projects, all while keeping them from the landfill.

Method No. 1: Freeze and Forget

→ What You’ll Need

• Freezer
• Butter knife
• Dish soap and a sponge

This approach is my favorite, because it’s virtually mindless and not very messy. Just be wary of filling up your entire freezer with random empty jars, because it can happen fast.

Prep your used candle by removing any excess wax with a butter knife. If the jar is still halfway full, this is probably not going to be the best route. Ideally, you should opt for a candle that you’ve already burned down to the wick’s metal base, which should only mean removing about 1/2 inch of wax at most. Toss your empty into the freezer for a few hours or until the wax is completely frozen; leaving it overnight is a safe bet.

✅ Pro Tip: Hold onto that excess wax. You can melt it down, pour it into ice-cube trays, and freeze it to create your own DIY wax melts.

Remove your jar from the freezer and set it on flat surface. Use a butter knife or another long, metal object to wiggle out the lump of frozen wax. You might need to stab the wax with the knife to pull it out, or “cut” along the circumference of the frozen wax disc to free it. If the wax is being particularly pesky, let the jar stand for a few minutes until the glass reaches room temperature; that will keep the warmth of your hands from causing the glass to sweat and slip out of your grip. We don’t want any butter-knife incidents.

Finally, pull off the metal base of the wick if it’s still stuck (these are glued to the bottom with a strong adhesive, so have a tendency to hang around), and use soap and water to clean any waxy residue from the jar.

Method No. 2: Just Add Boiling Water

→ What You’ll Need

• A microwave or a stove
  
• A microwave-safe container or a small pot
• Dish soap and a sponge
• Kitchen towel (optional)
• Slotted spoon (optional)

If you want your cleaned-out jar ASAP, this is the best method. Dump water into a small pot or microwave-safe container. Bring your water to a boil on the stovetop or in the microwave. Next, carefully pour the boiling water into the containers, being sure to cover any areas covered in thick wax. (You can place a kitchen towel under your jars at this stage to protect your countertops, if you’d like).

✅ Did You Know? Similarly to how oil and water don’t mix, wax and water don’t mix. Wax is technically not an oil, because it’s thicker and semisolid at room temperature, but both waxes and oils are lipids—a group of naturally occurring molecules that store energy and add structural integrity to cell membranes. That’s key, because most lipids are non-polar (no charged regions) or only slightly polar (with a few charged areas), meaning they are hydrophobic, or repel water. Water mixes with hydrophilic, or water-loving, compounds by binding to charged groups. That’s why this method works!

Let the boiling water work its magic for a few minutes—I waited about ten minutes, and that seemed like ample time. You should see a layer of wax forming on top of the water; that’s your signal that you can move on to the next step. Skim the wax off with a slotted spoon or whatever you have on hand, and throw it away (don’t let it go down the drain, it’ll clog it like bacon grease). Dump the excess water down the drain, and toss the metal wick base. Use a bit of soap and water to clean up any smoke marks or remaining residue.

Method No. 3: The Solvent Solution

→ What You’ll Need

• Olive oil or another lipophilic solvent
• Paper towels or an old dish rag
• Butter knife
• Dish soap and a sponge

This is the only method that I hadn’t previously tried before writing this article, but it piqued my interest after poring over a 1956 patent for a solvent that could remove paraffin wax from oil pipelines. The invention outlined is essentially a paraffin wax solvent containing equal parts acetone and kerosene. I’m not in the habit of keeping a highly flammable fuel source around in my apartment, so I began searching for an alternative solvent.

This is where I admit that I’ve had a small patch of candle wax stuck to my bedroom wall for months because I wasn’t sure how to remove it after my wax melter tipped over. The Jackson Pollack-looking splotch became my test bed for two solvents I had at home: acetone and olive oil.

From left to right: an untreated streak of wax, a streak of wax treated with olive oil, and a streak of wax treated with acetone. The olive oil successfully removed the wax, but the acetone only successfully removed paint.

To test each solvent, I soaked one cotton ball in acetone and one in olive oil before gently rubbing the wax streaks. Unfortunately, the acetone (on the right) only removed the white paint on my wall, exposing a streak of ancient blue. To my surprise, the olive oil stripped the wax away almost immediately.

There’s a simple reason why the olive oil outmatched the acetone, despite my expectations, and it hearkens back to a saying you might’ve heard from your parents or a science teacher: like dissolves like. In other words, because wax is hydrophobic, you need to use a solvent that plays nice with fats, not water-based solvents. Enter olive oil, which is a lipophilic substance, meaning it dissolves well in lipids or fats. (Kerosene is derived from petroleum, which explains why that old patent calls for it in dissolving waxes from pipes.)

When it came time to try this out on an empty candle jar, I simply poured a thin layer of olive oil on top of the wax and left it to sit for 20 minutes. When I came back, I grabbed a paper towel and wiped the bottom of the container clean. Only the base of the wick was left, which I removed with a butter knife. Finally, I used soap and water to clean the oily residue from the sides of the jar.

How to Reuse Your Clean Candle Jars

After cleaning out my candle jar, I potted some of my aloe plant’s pups to start a whole new plant.

Now that the grunt work is wrapped up, pat yourself on the back for taking a few minutes of your day to clean out the jars, rather than toss them into the trash. Since candles come in all shapes and sizes, there are a ton of ways to reuse your empties. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Make your own candles
• Use the containers as small plant pots or to propagate trimmings
• Store your spare change or other small household necessities like screws, bolts, matches, or nails
• Use one as a toothbrush holder
• DIY your own ambient home decor with a string of battery operated LED lights inside
• Create your own terrarium
• Reuse them as glassware to drink from, just like an old jam jar or Mason jar (just be sure you’ve thoroughly cleaned them!)
• If your jars have lids, use them to store overnight oats, homemade preserves, spices, etc.
• Pop in some LED tea lights for a flame-free light source

Courtney Linder

Deputy Editor, Features

Before joining Pop Mech, Courtney was the technology reporter at her hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where she studied English and economics. Her favorite topics include, but are not limited to: the giant squid, punk rock, and robotics. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband, her black cat, and towers upon towers of books.