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Having a good smelling home is so nice and relaxing, but sometimes there’s almost a science behind creating scents that fill every room without being too overbearing.
Debbie Chapman from the blog, One Little Project, is a big user of candles, especially during the colder months.
However, Debbie’s candles aren’t the average store-bought ones you’re probably imagining.
She found a way to recycle something from the kitchen that fills her home with wonderful smells.
Debbie turned to the popular winter fruit: clementines!
“I love buying the first box of the season,” Debbie wrote on her blog post. “And that first smell when you peel them and a bit of orange oil sprays out and make the whole room smell like Christmas -- it’s one of my favorite things!”
This scent isn’t just good for Christmas, though. Really, any citrus with a thick skin would work well. That includes grapefruits, oranges, limes, and lemons!
What does she do with the peels you ask? Make candles! That’s right, fruit can be made into candles that actually work well!
To make it happen, she gathered her clementines, olive oil, a knife and spoon, and a lighter.
Debbie started by making a cut around the entire center of the clementine only deep enough to slice through the skin without touching the actual fruit.
Then, she took the spoon and used it to separate the fruit from the peel, carefully.
She finished removing the skin using her fingers to make sure it came apart in one complete piece.
“You know the little white bits of clementine that are between the skin and the fruit? Debbie wrote. “You’ll need to peel away the fruit while keeping as much of the white stuff that’s inside the end of the clementine as you can.”
Debbie added that the white stuff works as the candle’s wick, and is crucial to the project working.
Once the fruit is completely out, Debbie said you can eat it!
Next, she took the half of the peel that had no white fibers attached and made a cute little hole in the top.
Then, she set that half aside and turned to the fiber-filled half. This is the one she poured olive oil in. Debbie said it’s important to pour enough so that the candle lasts as long as possible, but the oil cannot cover the top of the fiber or it won’t light.
The only thing to do after that was light it!
She finished the candles by covering them with the other half of the orange and then enjoyed the creation!
“These clementine candles are really easy to make, and will burn for about half an hour,” Debbie wrote. And they smell amazing!”
Find more details about the project here.
