Ms Bubu and Her Girlyness: Bath & Body Works Jar Reuse

How I Reuse my Bath & Body Works (+ more) Candle Jars

If you're anything like me and are a candle junkie, you probably have a ton of candle jars leftover. And in some cases, you probably bought the candle because of the said jar...

I've been reusing mine since I started burning candles in high school and here are my tips on how to get the wax out, how to clean the jars and what I do with them. Enjoy!

Empty candle jars

One of my favourite ways to get the leftover wax out of the jars is to just put the jar in the freezer for a few hours (depending on the size), and then pop a knife in. It is the cleanest and easiest way to do this. I am then left with a fairly easy to clean jar and some wax barks.

But since I had lots of wax left, I wanted to make some wax tarts out of them and make it pretty. I used a pan with boiling water and the I put the jars to melt, using the same principle as in a bain-marie. TIP: to make your water boil faster, put some salt in it.

It's taking a little time to make the wax melt, depending on the size. The advantage of that technique is that it makes it so easy to take off the labels.

It's now a joke to peel off the labels

I then put my melted wax in ice cube trays, and then I let it cool until hard.

Festive ice cube trays

The annoying thing with this technique is to remove the glue that was holding the wicks (the BBW are especially tough) and the wax that is now all over the jar. What I find is best is to pour a little bit of bleach in the jar, and then fill it with boiling water. (NOTE: Never put cold water in a hot glass container! It will explode, and yes, I did experience that: in science class, I broke a beaker that way and I learnt my lesson). After that I wash my jars, with lukewarm water and dishwashing soap. If you have any leftovers when you are finished washing your jars, a cotton wool with rubbing alcohol is great.

And then you're left with clean jars, ready to reuse! Since I'm a makeup hoarder, it just makes sense to use them to store my beauty bits. I use of of them to put my Revlon Lip Butters in, and in this case, I wanted to make a brush holder. I just bought some vase fillers at Dollarama, I found it in the craft section and it was 2$. I didn't need the whole bag for my holder.