Mark,

Forget the Vaseline cotton balls. Spend $3.00 and get a package of Coghlan’s Emergency Tinder. It is impregnated with wax. It is not messy. To use: take one and pull it in half and then put the halves back together with the frayed ends up. Hit it with anything like a spark and it will burn for a good 3 minutes. If you add some fatwood you have the best change of starting a fire there is.
Tinder