8 Reasons To Choose Wax Melts Vs. Candles

Everyone prefers their home to smell nice, and filling your house with pleasing scents is a great way to lift your spirits. A candle can make your home smell like fresh linen, fresh-baked cookies, or any other aroma you can imagine. But the open flame can sometimes present some safety risks. Safety concerns are just one of many reasons to choose wax melts vs. candles.

Wax melts are safer, burn longer, release a more consistent fragrance, and are more cost-effective than candles. You can also adjust the amount of fragrance you want and switch up aromas easily. With candles, you need to be wary of the open flame and can only burn them safely for a short time.

Choosing between candles and wax melts might come down to your personal preference. But there’s no denying that wax melts possess many advantages over their traditional candle counterparts.

Candles have been around for centuries. Through the years, they’ve provided light in the darkness, a romantic vibe to date nights, or given a Jack-o-lantern its eerie glow. But candles have also been the source of accidents and injuries, causing roughly 2% of house fires between 2015 and 2019.

When you burn candles, it’s best not to do so for more than four hours at a time. It’s also dangerous to leave a burning candle unattended or overnight while you’re sleeping. Left unchecked, candles can emit dangerous chemicals, ignite nearby materials, or catch fire.

A candle that gets too hot can heat up the wax so intensely that it catches fire, leading to a large flame. Wax melts have become a popular alternative to candles in many homes. They typically are small cubes of wax, either paraffin, beeswax, or soy.

You place these cubes in a specially designed warmer that uses electricity and a bulb to produce enough heat to melt the wax. Therefore, there’s no open flame like you get with a candle.

You can use the same warmer over and over again, switching out the wax melts when you want a new fragrance.

Wax melts give you more control over the fragrance in your home. A candle can produce a fantastic aroma that fills your house with a pleasing scent. However, sometimes, it can become overpowering, and you have no way to dial it down a bit.

The candle gets so hot that it diffuses the scent into the air quickly and evaporates faster. Additionally, all you can do is light the candle, and the amount of fragrance you get is out of your control.

Wax melts come in many different fragrances, and you can adjust how little or how much of it you want. If you are trying to add a certain aroma to a small space, you might only use one wax melt. However, if you want to fill your whole living area, you can put three wax melts in the warmer.

Also, since the warmers don’t get as intensely hot as a candle flame, the wax melts can deliver a more consistent fragrance. The fragrance won’t dissipate as quickly, lingering in the air a bit longer for you to enjoy without becoming overpowering.

Your wax melts will last you much longer than a typical candle. For one thing, once the wax melts, you can pour it back into the container, let it cool, and use it again. With a candle, the wax evaporates as it burns, which is why eventually, you’re left with a small wax stump with a wick.

In time, you’ll notice that the melts aren’t giving off as much fragrance, which indicates it’s time for new ones. But you’ll be able to get several burn sessions from them before this happens.

Wax melts can burn for roughly 8 hours safely and still emit a pleasant fragrance. They absorb heat slower than candles do, which means the oils that deliver the fragrance won’t burn up so fast.

When you burn a candle, the recommendation is not to do so for longer than four hours. Allowing a candle to burn too long increases the risk of it releasing chemicals or causing a fire.

As the candle burns, it heats up the wax, and if it gets too hot, the wax can ignite. Plus, burning a candle for too long can damage the candle or the candle holder.

For example, you might notice tunneling in your candle when a ledge develops around the rim. Or, if in a glass candle jar or holder, the heat can become so intense it shatters the glass.

Since wax melts burn longer and are reusable, they save you money. You spend more on the initial warmer, but a pack of melts costs between $6 and $15. Since you can use the warmer over and over again, you only need to focus on the cost of the melts.

Plus, you typically won’t use the entire pack at one time. Instead, you’re more likely to use a few at a time, depending on how much fragrance you want. A high-quality candle can cost between $15 and $30. And once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Filling your home with a pleasant fragrance is easy when you use wax melts. Using wax melts instead of candles will give you a longer burn time, a more consistent aroma, and save you money. Typically, wax melts last much longer than candles, and you can let them burn for nearly twice as long.

Plus, you can reuse wax melts since the wax doesn’t evaporate as it does with a candle. You’ll get a few uses out of your wax melts before the fragrance starts to fade and you need to replace them. Since the wax doesn’t evaporate, you don’t have to worry about any potentially harmful chemicals making their way into the air.

If you love to change up your favorite fragrances often, wax melts are ideal. You can adjust the amount of fragrance and change it often since numerous scents are available. You can even mix and match various melts to create your own unique fragrances.

Although candles can be a safe and reliable option when you choose high-quality products, wax melts take the lead in many scenarios. No matter which you choose, always keep things safe and don’t leave anything burning when you’re not at home.