PINSPIRED: No magic method for clearing glass of wax

The Tonawanda News The Tonawanda News Sun Aug 11, 2013, 12:22 PM EDT

Tonawanda News — It seemed too easy to be true.

I’m no stranger to cleaning the wax out of glass votive cup after glass votive cup. You see, my mother rents out items for weddings and other events for a living, including numerous pieces of glassware she often fills with a variety of candles.

Just yesterday I watched her pop the melted wax out of some 120 votive cups she used for tea lights at my cousin’s wedding. I’d like to say I helped her this time, but, well, I was a bad daughter and napped instead. Hey ... I’m on vacation afterall!

I came across a Pinterest pin recently that made me think I might be able to simplify the process for her.

The pin led back to a post on the Yellow Brick Home blog that had such beautiful photos of bright red wax floating at the top of a vase, ready to just pick out. The rest of the glass was spotlessly clean.

I borrowed three of my mother’s recently cleaned small votive cups and filled the bottoms with what I thought was a brilliant green wax that would photograph vividly. Not so much ... it managed to dull and get mixed with some burnt pieces of wick.

I filled one with only a small bit of wax, another I dripped down the sides — more like what my mom says she normally deals with — and one with about twice as much wax as the others.

I let them dry, then filled them to the top with boiling water as the original blog post instructed.

I immediately noticed little bits of wax pooling at the top of the water and felt pretty confident it would all melt and rise to the top, just as the original pin showed.

I let the votives sit for a couple hours to let the water cool and the wax to resolidify — again, as per instructions. When I came back, the same little bits of wax were floating at the top, but that was all.

The rest of the wax remained solid and stuck to the bottom of the votive.

Lesson learned, boiling water doesn’t clear glass of stuck-on wax.

I asked my mom for her preferred method so I could at least give you readers some useful information.

First, put the votive or glass in the freezer for about 10 minutes to allow the wax to get hard. Immediately upon removing the glass from the freezer, she slams them upside down upon a table to pop out the frozen wax. (Be careful, you don’t want to end up with shattered glass in your palm.)

If there is still a little wax stuck on the glass, use a scrubby sponge and hot, soapy water to clear it out.

Looks like she’ll be sticking to her normal routine for now.