SEE How to make candle from orange peel

Hehehe....Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you needed electricity desperately, but couldn’t find any, probably because there was power outage, your rechargeable lamps were not charged, your phone does not have torch and there was no fuel in your generator?

If this happens again, don’t worry. You are not entirely out of luck. According to cnet.com, you can quickly make a makeshift candle with the most common household items in your kitchen.

What you will need

 

An orange is recommended for this project, but any citrus fruit could also work. The most important thing is that there should be no holes in at least one half of the peel.

You’ll also need some olive oil. Other oils could work, but olive oil is fairly stable. It’s commonly used in proper candles and oil lamps as an alternative to kerosene.

Finally, you need a knife and either a grill lighter or some long matches.

Step 1:

Cut the orange into half and peel

To make a candle, start by cutting the orange into half. Be sure to leave the stem on the inside of the orange intact. The best way to remove the fruit from the peel is to cut around the peel with your knife, but don’t cut all the way through the orange. Then you can use your fingers to separate the fruit from the peel and work your way around the entire orange. The fruit should break away from the peel, exposing the stem.

Step 2:

Pour the oil into the empty peel

Pour olive oil into the empty orange peel, filling it up roughly halfway. Make sure to lightly coat the stem with some olive oil while you pour, then let the orange sit for a few minutes. You have to give the peel and stem ample time to soak up some of the oil, otherwise it won’t burn or stay lit.

Step 3:

Light up

After a few minutes, use the lighter to light the tip of the stem. It can take quite a bit of effort to get the stem to light, but it should burn for several hours once it’s lit.

NOTE: Obviously, this experiment isn’t ideal for daily or even frequent use. And you should consider the risks of burning oil and an open flame in the peel of a fruit before trying this yourself. It should be used cautiously, but it will certainly work as a light source in a pinch — or it could even provide some creative decoration for a backyard cookout.