What exactly is a wax melt?

As the title suggests today we are covering a very simple question. What exactly is a wax melt?

Now to some of us this is an incredibly easy answer, in fact a somewhat silly question. So it may come as a surprise to some that many people have never heard of them nor know what they are. Since setting up Simply Melted we’ve had opportunities to do pop up stores and it has always shocked me when I’ve been asked “what are they?” or “what are they used for?”.

The clue is in the name. It’s wax that is melted traditionally in a tea light wax burner. More modern take of that though is newer electric wax warmers. These are designed to softly melt the wax and provide a lighter melt over a period of time. 

A wax melt is a different form of scented candles. Melted for the sole purpose of providing home fragrance in a smaller form and normally more cost effective way, even when taking into account buying the wax burner and possible tea lights.

If you type Wax melts into a search engine you’ll see just how popular they are. Sold in there millions in multiple forms. For example you can buy them as individuals or as ‘snap bars’. A wax melt snap bar again is simply a bar of wax where you snap of your required amount for your burner.

Now, many small business advertise these as ‘highly scented’. We can confirm that in fact is in essence a white lie. All waxes have a maximum fragrance load, which is the maximum amount of fragrance oil you use in percentage form. Most commonly this is maximum of 12% of the total weight. Even more commonly is for this to not exceed 10%. Some of this is also reliant on which fragrance oils you use for safety and legal reasons. How is this a white lie you may ask…. Well a candle has exactly the same fragrance load but on a bigger scale.

For example a wax melt may only weigh 10grams so 1gram of that is fragrance oil. A candle could weigh 220grams so would have 22grams of fragrance oil. Although in a twist of cases we can normally smell a scent more within a wax melt as opposed to a candle. Some of this is due to a wax melt is made from a wax mix designed just for free standing candles and mostly due to the volume. A candle will disperse the scent over the whole candle and a wax melt will burn through the fragrance oil without much loss to actual wax.

So in answer to that …. No a wax melt is not anymore highly scented than a candle. If anything it is only a selling term to attract the normal buyer. If a company says otherwise if challenged they are either not telling the truth or they are over loading beyond safe and legal levels.

To conclude a wax melt is a simple and in our opinion a more cost effective way to enjoy the amazing scents of a candle. They are growing hugely in popularity and will no doubt continue to do so. What’s more we have an amazing selection on our website of both individual wax melts and also wax burners. So if you haven’t tried them before why not indulge. Or if you already use but haven’t tried ours then go ahead and check us out.