Just like it is necessary to sterilize jars to put food in, it is also necessary to sterilize jars or glass bottles you put your homemade cosmetics in. When making a macerated oil (such as this jiaogulan macerated oil) and all kinds of homemade cosmetics such as body butter or body oil you need to have a clean jar where you’re going to put it in. This is how to sterilize those jars:
The best and simplest way to sterilize a jar would be using high temperature in various ways such as:
- boiling water
- the oven
- the microwave
Before you start sterilizing the jars, you should wash them thoroughly with a detergent and dry them out with a clean cotton cloth.
How to sterilize a jar using boiling water:
- Find a big and deep pot, possibly with a lid.
- Fill it with either cold or lukewarm water and submerge all your bottles and jars along with their lids. Cover up the pot and let it reach its boiling point.
- Once it does, leave it boiling for about 10 minutes, and that should complete the process of sterilization.
Remember to be careful with hot water while getting your objects out of the pan. I normally use kitchen tweezers to get the jars out without burning myself.
How to sterilize a jar in the oven:
- Use a large baking tray covered with baking paper. Arrange your jars onto the paper covered surface top-down.
- Preheat the oven to 110 °C or about 225 °F, and bare in mind not to push the limit because the glass might break exposed to higher temperatures. And you wouldn’t want to make a danger zone out of your kitchen, right?
- Wait for about 10 minutes and slowly take the jars out of the oven with a little help from an oven mitt or a kitchen towel.
How to sterilize a jar in the microwave:
- First, preheat the oven to 280 °F / 160 °C. The hot oven will be used to dry the jars once they have been sterilized in the microwave.
- Fill jars halfway with cold water and place them in the microwave. Depending on the size of the microwave, more than one jar can be sanitized at the same time.
- Heat the jars in the microwave on high temperature for around 3 minutes or until the water boils. The boiling water will sanitize the inside of the jar.
- Place jars upside-down in the oven. Allow the jars to drain and dry in the oven.
Once the jars have dried, they will be ready to be filled and sealed.
Now you can put your old perfume bottle or jam jar to use and in a way recycle them.
I usually sterilize the bottles and the jars with the first method, using boiling water. It has showed to be the simplest way for me.