How to: Make a New Candle from All Your Spent Ones

As a man, I fully endorse candles. If you look beyond the Yankees and Bath and Body scents you can really find some invigorating scents. My personal favorites smell like camp fires, tobacco and patchouli.     Funny enough, all of those candles I have around my home have reached the bottom of the container and the wick no longer lights. It’s really frustrating when there clearly is plenty of wax left but no more wick and you paid $20 for the thing. What usually happens is the wax and wick are spread across a large surface area, so you need to transfer the wax to a new, smaller container to keep the fire going.

Here’s what you’ll need:

• Various spent candles
• A pack of wicks and bases. You can buy them together or separate.
• Glue Gun
• A small mason jar, our use one of the candle containers you already have
• Oven Glove
• Old Cookie Sheet

Set your oven to the lowest temperature–mine goes to 170 degrees–this will warm the candles enough to melt but won’t release all of the aromatic oils into the air as it melts.

Place your candles on an old cookie sheet and put in the oven. It took my candles about 30 minutes to melt. 

While your candles are melting, warm up your glue gun and put a glob on the base of wick. Place it firmly in the bottom of the empty container. 

Once the candles are melted, take a minute to pick out the old bases and chunks of burnt wicks. You don’t want those back in your new candle. I used a pair of long, skinny pliers to grab them. 

Let the glass cool enough to touch with your hands and carefully pour out the wax into the new container. 

Once you pour one candle in, let it cool completely before pouring the next scent. This will create layers of scents that change as the candle burns. I actually put my candle in the fridge to let cure. It didn’t seem to cause any problems as it cooled.

I used a pre-waxed wick that stands up straight on its own. Other kinds of wicks will require something to hold the wick up straight as the wax cures. A clothes pin or chopsticks pinching the wick over the mouth should do just fine.

Trim the wick and you’re finished! 

Bonus: If you want to clean out the old containers from wax residue you can pour really hot (just below boiling) water into the container. The wax will melt then reform into a disc that will float at the mouth of the glass for you to easily grab.