DIY Expert Shares Cost-Effective Hack That Makes Your Expensive Candles Last Longer

No candles burn perfectly. Unlike a car’s gas tank, it doesn’t always get empty of the wax. While most of the wax melts in the flame’s heat and rises into the cotton wick to vaporize, some particles are spilled down, like vegetables sprayed from a kitchen mixer. The dripping wax then forms a pool around the wick’s bottom, often crawling up to the sides of the candle container. For expensive candles, it can be heartbreaking to let this leftover wax go to waste. In a recent TikTok titled “Remaking Candles,” Melissa Ritchie (@littleterracedhouse), shared an effortless way to repurpose this leftover wax. The hack has amassed over 5 million views.

“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 lying around). Don’t leave candles unattended, use common sense and use candle-safe jars, etc,” Melissa wrote in the video’s caption. She urged people to not waste the leftover wax.

“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 TikTok user said, as the camera displayed a brown candle holder with a puddle of ivory-colored wax sitting at its bottom. Melissa poured hot water into the candle from a kettle. “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,” she explained, and scooped out cracked cakes of ivory wax, heaping them on a countertop.

Inside the emptied candle holder, she pointed to the sticky pad at the bottom. She attached a long wick to the pad, just like a “lolly stick." The next step is to settle the melted wax back down again by placing it into a plastic cup before putting it in a kettle of boiling water. Once the wax has melted, pour it back into the candle, and wait for it to become settled at the bottom. After this, Melissa suggested trimming the wick. “And you’ve got, probably an extra three to four hours of burn time,” she told the viewers. The video wrapped up with the scene of this recyclable candle burning with a soft glow.

Melissa’s hack invited the attention of hundreds of people who jumped in to share their comments, while also sharing other interesting hacks to recycle the leftover candle wax. “Wrap tin foil around your candle it will burn back even,” said @ichenxibao, and a dozen other people. Better Homes & Gardens agrees to this hack, explaining that wrapping a tinfoil along the candle’s edge prevents tunneling and ensures that the wax burns evenly all the way. @carlaamee and @insimonated suggested popping the leftover wax in the microwave to melt it. @adelehardcastle shared another insight on candle burning, “Candles have memory, as long as you burn it long enough to burn the whole circumference of the top in one go it shouldn't go like that.”

Candlelore explains that “candle memory” is the memory of wax that stores its past experiences, just like human memory. If it didn’t burn along the edges in its first burn, it would continue to burn in the same pattern, probably tunneling every time. So, if someone doesn’t want to go all the way to remake candles like Melissa, they can control the burning pattern or the candle memory the very first time it is lit up with a flame.

You can follow Melissa Ritchie (@littleterracedhouse) on TikTok for more interesting DIY hacks!