I've usually seen them put into a ziplock bag with the jelly and then sort of mashed around.
To me, pre-prepared stuff like the cotton balls are handy for hiking or camping or whatever, but not really a true practice of survival skills. Making fire with stuff you find in the woods is a lot more of a survival skill. I also suck at it. A lot.
True. Petroleum jelly cotton balls isn't really "survival skills." Poor choice of words on my part. I think emergency preparedness fits the cotton balls better, because in an emergency kit, everything should be readily available for use. I think just the fire starting aspect of my question had me thinking of survival skills.
As a side note, by sister and her husband are nuts about primitive survival skills! They do the whole stick rubbing thing to start fires! I tried it once, got a small bit of smoke, then gave up. Another time, I guess!
