Candles are the perfect addition to any home, providing a dash of warmth and atmosphere; however, they can be incredibly costly. It might be tempting to let a candle burn throughout the day, but the last thing you’d want is to squander those lavish waxes.
Fortunately, there’s a trick to help you make your posh candles stretch further without having to discard them. Lifestyle and DIY aficionado Mel, better known as @littleterracedhouse on TikTok, revealed her savvy tactic for extending the life of a candle, reports the Mirror.
Earlier this year, she posted a video with the caption: “I hate it when you get a spenny candle and it burns down unevenly leaving you with loads of wasted wax! This is how I make sure I get my money’s worth (you can just make wax melts if you don’t randomly have candle making apparatus laying around). Don’t leave candles unattended, use common sense and use candle safe jars.”
She added: “So you know when you’ve had an expensive candle and it burns down like this? This is how you can make sure none of that deliciously scented wax goes to waste.”
The hack is simple – just boil your kettle. Mel explained: “First of all, you need to just fill it up with hot water. Gradually your wax will come to the top and form a sort of film which you can then crack open and either use these bits as wax melts, or if you want to go one step further, if you happen to have the equipment, remake your candle.”
To give your candle a new lease of life, you’ll need to start with a fresh wick. Begin by melting the old wax; place it in a plastic, heat-resistant cup or container and then into a pan of boiling water from the kettle.
Once liquefied, pour the wax back into its original jar and let it solidify. After setting, snip the wick to size. Mel revealed that this sustainable trick can extend a candle’s burn time by an additional three to four hours.
The hack, shared on Mel’s TikTok, has gone viral with over 3.3 million views, garnering 83,700 likes and hundreds of comments, at the time of writing. Candle Shack UK suggests another method: melting the wax in a microwave-safe container. To prevent overheating, they advise removing the wax before it’s fully melted and stirring until smooth.
However, they caution against using a water bath for melting wax due to several risks: “It can be hazardous. You are handling a pan of boiling water, bubbling away with another pan balanced on top of it or inside it – this creates a high risk of burning or scalding.
“2) It can also ruin your product – with all that water boiling and splashing around, you could easily get water mixed with your candle wax. Water and wax make a bad combination.
“3) Also, think about the planet – water is a precious resource. Why would you want to boil all that water and then throw it away every time?”