Olive Oil Candles

Simple and very useful!

by Merissa on January 17, 2012

It's a good idea to be able to know how to create your own light sources in case you ever need them. This is a simple candle that you can put together with things that you already have laying around the kitchen (besides the wick, but I'd recommend keeping that as a regular stockpiled item anyways!)
What you need:

• Jar
• Olive Oil
• Wire or Paper Clip
• Wick

Depending on how long you want your candle to burn you can pick different thicknesses of wick. The one I used here is the one I had on hand but I think for next time I will get some thicker wick or even lantern wick so it provides for light and burns longer.

Cut the wick a couple inches long. Wrap part of the wire or paper clip wire around one end of the wick. Wrap it tight enough that the wick can't fall down but no so tight that you can't move the wick up when you need to.

Bend the wire so it hooks onto the side of the jar.

Here's a close up of the wick in the middle. You don't want too much sticking above the oil because it needs to be able to soak the oil all the way up the wick to burn.

Add your olive oil and that's it! To save money on olive oil you could buy the expired oils from surplus stores.

The awesome thing about this candle/lantern is that olive oil burns clean and doesn't smoke. You can make these lanterns in any size of jar that you have on hand (the one I used here is a half pint). You may want to stick with a wide mouth jar though to make it easier to fix the wick when you need to. Also, if you want them to be scented you could just add essential oils (or even dried or fresh herbs!) right to the oil.