How Do You Make Homemade Candles for Survival?

A good survivalist recognizes the difference between saving everything that can be repurposed and hoarding stuff outright. My bagaholic tendencies tend to come and go, but one thing I can never get rid of are old candles.

If you saw my post about candle blocks as classic survival gear , then you’ll see how useful candle remnants are. It's also very convenient to completely rebuild old candles and give them a second life.

Making candles is also easy. All you need to make a candle is wax, a heat source to melt the wax, plant fiber wick material, and a container. The simplest candle can be made by melting a piece of paraffin wax in an old soup can, pouring the warm wax into the empty can, and dipping a jute rope wick into the melted wax.

I recommend reusing the same furnace and melting the wax over medium heat. Skip the microwave, though—they're not effective at melting wax.
You can choose beeswax, old candles, paraffin, or even use animal fats like lard or beef tallow. In the end, bacon grease has a respectable purpose.

Your wick can be cotton rope, jute rope, homemade plant fiber rope, sisal rope, or even long thin strips of cotton. Just make sure the wick material is from the plant kingdom, consists of little or no synthetic materials, and is porous enough to provide wicking action for the melted wax.

You can make candles of any size or shape. A wax ball can be turned into a candle by inserting a wick. You can even repair an old candle without a wick by heating a screwdriver, inserting it into the candle, and then inserting the new wick into the old candle. You can make a taper candle by repeatedly dipping the wick strands into a deep container of melted wax and building up the layers.

But be careful about these things. Approximately 10,000 residential fires are caused each year by careless or improper use of candles.