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Making your own fire starters is one of the best parts of camping. DIY fire starters are easy to make, the materials are cheap, and because many household items are surprisingly flammable, they allow for endless creativity. Plus, it's not every day you get the chance to create something that you'll later use to light a fire. There's a dark, cosmic beauty to it.
Plus, fire starters are objectively a good idea to have. They're perfect for those damp environments where dry fire starters are hard to find, and they minimize the stress of starting a campfire, making them ideal for camp cooking when there's a bunch of hungry people waiting for your hot coals. I usually bring one with me whenever I go car camping, and I try to keep a small one in my emergency kit on backpacking trips.
Of course, just because the internet is full of DIY fire starter recipes doesn't mean they're all going to work. I've rounded up seven methods from the crafting community and tested them. Here are the best DIY fire starters, ranked by quality.
1. Dangerous toothpaste
Weight: 1.7 oz.
Burn Time: 0 minutes
When I saw this on the internet I knew I had to try it. In theory this is pretty smart: you empty a tube of toothpaste, cut the end off, fill the tube with a mixture of hot Vaseline and sawdust, and close the tube again with a hot knife. In theory this would allow you to squeeze out fire starting gel into your tinder and then close the tube for later use.
I actually found it very difficult to reseal the plastic with a hot knife. (I ended up melting everything with a lighter). I also found that heating the Vaseline in the microwave made my kitchen smell funny. The last, and probably biggest, problem is that this product does not ignite well. The Vaseline melts almost instantly, leaving behind a puddle of Vaseline with wood chips in it. I tried multiple times with multiple matches but could not get it to ignite. I think maybe the sawdust to Vaseline ratio was too low. Needs further investigation.
If you decide to make this, make sure to store it separately from your other toiletries, as accidentally spraying it on your toothbrush can make for a rough morning.
2. Alcohol-filled corks
Weight: 0.2 oz.
Burn Time: 5 seconds
At first glance, this seems like a good idea: soak a cork in rubbing alcohol, keep it in a ziplock bag, and light it when you're ready. In reality, rubbing alcohol ignites and burns very quickly, while dense cork takes longer to ignite. This means that the alcohol burns off almost instantly, leaving only a dry, uncharred cork. You're better off carrying a bottle of rubbing alcohol with you and pouring it on anything that might actually catch fire (like wood chips or cardboard). Or, you can literally make any of the other fire starters on this list.
3. Wood chips bonbons
Weight: 0.1 oz
Burn time: 2.5 minutes
This clean, easy to make on the spot fire starter is one of the lightest and fastest-heating fire starters I've tried. All you need is a square of wax paper and a handful of wood chips. Wrap the wood chips around the paper, twist the ends like a candy wrapper, and light the edge of the paper.
The only drawbacks to this product are that (A) it's a bit bulky, making it hard to fit under a tight teepee structure, and (B) it's hard to store in a pack without the paper ripping and letting wood chips spill into your contents. It's also not waterproof, per se. But it can be useful in a pinch.
4. Dryer lint eggs
Weight: 1 oz.
Burn time: 7 minutes
This is a DIY fire starter Backpacker They're most often recommended because the ingredients are essentially free and you can make 12 at a time. All you need is dryer lint, paper egg cartons, and leftover candle wax. I bought beeswax pellets, but you could also scrape the wax off a used candle and remelt it in a double boiler. (Pro tip: If you don't want to mess with your pan, melt the wax in a disposable pie plate or aluminum foil boat.)
As advertised, the Dryer Lint Egg is easy to make: just cut a cup out of a paper egg carton, fill it with lint, and pour hot wax over the top. It can easily be stored in a backpack. It is heavy, though, and because the wax only covers the top of the egg cup, it's not waterproof. While the burn time is impressive (it was 7 minutes from ignition to end of burn), it does have one lesser-known drawback: As you may know, dryer lint is made up of all the weird stuff that falls off of your clothes in the dryer. If you have long hair like me, most of it is human hair. The rest (tiny fibers from synthetic fleece jackets and running clothes) are microplastics. So while the lint-in-the-egg-cup trick certainly works, it also smells really nasty.
5. Sawdust muffins
Weight: 1.9 oz.
Burn time: 15 minutes
These are easy to make. Just fill paper muffin cups with wood shavings or sawdust and pour wax into each corner. To use, light the paper on fire and watch the whole thing burn. Sawdust muffins work wonders. Mine burned fine for 15 minutes, more than enough time to get a fire going. It probably would have burned longer, but smoke started drifting into my neighbor's open window and I panicked and doused a bucket of water on the fire to avoid calling the property owners association.
The downside to Sawdust Muffins is that they're heavy and bulky. A muffin cup filled with wax weighs as much as a similar-sized candle, and that's because Sawdust Muffins are that size. My version was nearly 2 ounces, making it the heaviest fire starter in our test. That said, Sawdust Muffins are cute and easy to stack, so if you're car camping, be sure to throw a few in your fire starter kit and you won't regret it.
6. Cotton Slimeball
Weight: 0.4 oz.
Burn time: 8.5 minutes
Dip a cotton ball or pad into hot Vaseline, then dip the entire thing into wax and let it dry. Now you have a compact, lightweight, reliable, waterproof fire starter. Cotton slime balls had the shortest burn time and were the lightest of all the fire starters I tested. They are a bit fiddly to make (just remember to use hot Vaseline) and depending on how you apply the wax, they can take up to a minute to light. I recommend scraping off a corner of the wax with your fingernail and fluffing the exposed cotton to maximize your chances of a first-time ignition. You can also store the cotton balls in a pill container to keep them waterproof.
7. Tampon Candles
Weight: 0.2 oz.
Burn time: 11.5 minutes
This is the second most effective method I have tried. It's easy to make, just dip a tampon in beeswax and let it dry. It's also very lightweight. It's easy to scrape the wax off the end of a string and ignite it within seconds. The tampon then acts as a compact cotton wick that burns for over 11 minutes before going out.
But there are a few problems with this method. One is that tampons are pretty expensive: a small box costs $8 to $10 (and includes a ton of unnecessary waste, like applicators and wrappers), compared to $2 to $3 for a bag of cotton balls or cotton pads. Another problem is that covering the tampon with wax makes it waterproof, so if you're in a hypothermia emergency, tampons are great to have. But if you're in a period emergency, they're pretty much useless.