Three Ways to Empty a Candle Jar

You want the glass, not the last centimetre of wax. Three ways we actually use.

1. Freezer

A few hours. Wax shrinks, you pop it out with a butter knife. Best for a clean puck. Worst if you are impatient and lever against thin glass.

2. Hot water

Stand the jar on a heatproof mat. Pour hot — not wildly boiling onto cold glass — water in. The wax floats. Let it set on the surface, lift it off, wash the rest with washing-up liquid. Do not send the wax down the plughole. More on the water method.

3. Warm oven

Low oven, jar on a tray, wax slumps, pour off into a tin. Stay with it. We do this with kit, not with a forgotten shelf at 180. Never microwave a jar with the tab still in. Microwave.

Then a drop of soap, dry it, give it a second life. The landscape glasses were chosen because they still look like something once the label is off.