How to make wax fire starters

Start a cozy fire this winter with these simple-to-make wax fire starters. These are a great project for repurposing leftover wax, wick trimmings, and paper towels from candle making. 

Ready to get started? Here’s what you’ll need.

Additional Items Needed:

• Cinnamon sticks
• Whole cloves
• Rosemary
• Paper towels or paper
• Muffin liners
• Muffin pan
• Scissors

Optional Items:

• Additional dried herbs and spices
• Small pine cones
• Wood shavings
• Twigs

Place the muffin liners into your muffin tin.

Cut the rosemary into smaller pieces and trim the metal tab off of your wicks. Add the cloves, cinnamon sticks, rosemary, paper towel (or paper) strips, and wick into the liners. 

We kept our fire starter mix pretty light and simple to leave room for your own creative touch. Other items you might want to add include things like small pine cones, wood shavings, twigs, and various dried herbs and spices. Don't be afraid to fill your tins pretty full; the more items you put in your fire starter, the better it will burn. Bonus: many of these items you probably already have in your pantry or in your backyard!

Place the large pouring pitcher on your digital scale and tare the weight. Weigh 19 oz. (539 g) of 464 soy wax in the large pitcher and set aside. 

Melt the 19 oz. (539 g) of wax with a double boiler or on a hot plate until it reaches 150°F (65.6°C).

NOTE: The more items you use for your fire starter filling, the less wax you'll need. 

Remove the pouring pitcher from the heat and pour carefully to keep the spices and herbs from rearranging too much.

Let the wax cool overnight and use to get your next fire started! We found these worked best using some kindling with the fire starter.

NOTE: Only burn these in a wood burning fireplace or in an outdoor fire pit. Do not use in a gas burning fireplace or wood stove.

If you're not as concerned about the aesthetics of your wax fire starters, you can use all items recycled from your candle making.

For these alternative fire starters, we used recycled leftover wax, wick trimmings, and paper towel that was used for wax and fragrance oil cleanup.

1. Make sure paper towel is cooled and dried out and cut it into smaller pieces; we packed the paper towel tightly into an 8 Bar Circle Silicone Mold.

2. Reheat wax to 150°F (65.6°C), pour into mold leaving some paper towel sticking out.

3. Pop in a wick and let cool.