cottonballs with vasaline firestaters

I have kept some in a plastic holder for over a year without any issues of drying out.

Theyll last for over a year

an easier way is to nuke the vaseline … Less mess and fire risk

AWESOME!
Thanks everyone!

You can actually overdo it (been there done that). You don't need to completely saturate the cotton, just get some worked into the outer layers. When in use, you can peel them open a bit and give them a spark. Don't expect a signal flare, just a nice little flame to get the bigger tinder going.

They are like Velveeta and Twinkies— they will outlast all of us :) Film cans work nice for stashing them. When you are looking for plastic vials to decant stuff into, keep an eye out for one with slightly larger openings— great for cotton balls.

Another cotton ball trick is to put them in duct tape. The tape will burn too. Slice the tape open, pull out some cotton and light it up.

Some folk jam them into soda straws and then fold the ends over and melt them closed.

You can use cotton balls and alcohol gel hand cleaner too– takes off with one spark. Make sure you don't have gel on your hands when you light them– you'll do a Young Frankenstein act— Fiiirrre!

Instead of vaseline, I use wax on the cotton balls, and I store them in a plastic film can. It is getting hard to find metal film cans these days.

–B.G.–

I just squish the vasaline into the cotton balls with my fingers and stick them in a small ziplock baggy. Packs nice and flat. The cotton balls don't need to "loft" to burn well. I make up whatever I need for my trip and don't keep any extras around so I don't know about the shelf life.

I think the mashing with fingers technique works well enough.
No need to get tricky making these things.

I actually had faster starts with dryer lint but maybe I had been washing fleece or something that burns well?

Found some really nice 100 year old chunks of yellow pine fatwood salvaged from a really old house to try next for a little sustained burn kindling

I've always just worked a little into the cotton- you don't want it dripping w/ petroleum jelly- you still want some dry fibers to catch a spark.

I've gone to using firestraws- less mess, can customize the size you want and are low volume, just do a bunch up at a sitting and you should be done for quite awhile

if you melt or nuke the vaseline into the cotton it burns for much longer … as much as 10 min i find .. just wrap it in foil and then use the foil as a surface to burn it on

the trick is to soak 3/4 of the cotton and leave the rest fluffed up to catch a spark

Why not just carry the components and make them as needed while on the trail?

Either use cottonballs or, ahem, tampons which pack really small but can be pulled apart to really loft up. I stole a few (sorry, wife) and keep them in a very small ziploc. I also take a 1 oz tube of petroleum lipblock, which can also be used for chafing, making it a multiple-use item.

If needed, pull apart the cotton, work the vaseline in with fingers, then light.

That's a very good idea!

the reason is that when you really need, it may be hard to do all the steps you need

KISS … if yr going hypothermic … even the simplest tasks can be impossible

Yeah I think that's a silly idea burning duct tape and plastic. But that's just me. Figure out another way.

Burning Petroleum jelly isn't any worse than burning duct tape or plastic, they are practically made out of the same stuff anyways minus a few addatives.

Not saying go burn plastic or anything, just pointing out that everyone is all for cotton balls and p.j., when in actuality it all comes from crude oil originaly anyway.

I use some of or a combination of all of these depending on conditions. dried pine resin , shredded birch bark, dryer lint, old mans beard.

If it's an emergency then by all means burn whatever you have to.