melting wax out of jars

[Laura L]

Does anyone have any slick tips on how to remove the wax out of full candle jars? My supplier is out of jars and I have a bunch of bad candles that I have been hanging onto forever so I thought I would use those jars to make my new candles. It seems like it might be a messy pain to get the wax out but I have orders to fill and don't won't to wait three weeks for my supplier to get their shipment in.

Thanks-

Laura

[SoyCandleQueen]

You can do this a couple ways that I can think of off the top of my head.

1. place them in a warm oven

2. place them on a candle warmer

Dawn

[hometowncandles]

I've also done this both ways. If you have several you may want to do them in the oven. I have an old cookie sheet I place my jars on, I can get 6 jars on it at a time. It takes a little while for them to melt completely, but it's much faster than doing one at a time on a warmer.

HTH~

Jennifer

[Trae]

Since the jars are full, try putting them in the oven upside-down in one of those foil baaking pans from the dollar store. One with high sides. Then once the wax melts out, just wipe the jars and put them n the dishwasher. You can store the wax in the foil pan and use for something else like firestarters. The foil pulls away from the wax pretty easily once you're ready to use it.

[sudsnwicks]

If I want to salvage the wax and it is just a jar or two, I place the jar upside down in my melting pot and put them in the oven on low setting for about a half hour. By then I should be able to just lift up the jar and everything should fall out into the melting pot.

[CareBear]

I'm just a newbie, but I put the jar upside down in my pour pot and blast the bottom with my heat gun. Just plops right out pretty quickly. and the heat softens the wick stick-um so it pulls out pretty easily too.

[Stella1952]

put the jar upside down in my pour pot and blast the bottom with my heat gun.

And at what temperature is that hot air blast coming from your heat gun? Overheating glass in this manner could easily cause it to shatter. This is not a safe practice with a heat gun.

[Breanna]

If its a full jar I dont recommend placing your jar upside down in the oven,,Put it on a cookie sheet as the others have said and let it melt and then pour (if not using again) into a large coffee can or I have a huge pickle jar I put wax Im not using again into. HTH

[CareBear]

oh I do it from quite a distance, being the paranoid type. but I'll stop anyway - just in case.

[Darbla]

If you can get all of the outside to melt, then you can get the whole unmelted middle out in one chunk along with the little that's melted. Don't know if that's feasible for whatever you're doing, but it's an idea.

Darbla

[Laura L]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I have probably 3-4 dozen 16 ounce candles to melt (alot of work to salvage a .40 cent jar!) so I will probably try to warm them in the oven right side up and see where that gets me. In case your wondering how I could possible have that many bad candles....had some bad wax that I kept trying to play with and fix. Thanks again for the tips, I appreciate it.

Laura

[Stella1952]

If its a full jar I dont recommend placing your jar upside down in the oven

Yeah, you're right, Breanna. The melting wax could cause a seal and crack the glass as the wax expands... You would think I would remember that one as I shattered one full of palm wax several years ago doing exactly that! :embarasse

Thanks for the reminder!!

[cherish]

i like using the oven method best. just pop them in the low temp oven first thing in the morning then you can forget about them for awhile since you probably don't feel like fixing a problem first thing in the morning, then after you get going and are ready to face the problem to be fixed they are melted! JMO.