What are wax melts?
Wild Venus absolutely loves creating a wide range of scented wax melts to fragrance your home and help create the ambience and personality that your home deserves.
But what are wax melts and how do our best smelling wax melts work?
Wax melts are chunks of wax which have been scented with fragrance oil. We make soy wax melts at Wild venus but any type of wax can be used including coconut, apricot, rapeseed, beeswax and paraffin.
Wax melts are heated using an electric wax melter or a candle wax melt burner to release beautiful and unique fragrances into the air. You can can some best strongest wax melts here to help cleanse your home or office space safely.
Using wax melts instead of candles has become increasingly popular as people have become obsessed with the huge array of unique fragrances available. Not only do wax melts offer such diversity in scent selection but they’re economical, lasting much longer than candles, and can also offer a much safer solution to candles as a wick and a flame isn’t always needed to melt the wax.
What types of Wax Melts are there?
You’ll usually find wax melts in a ‘snap bar’ which is shaped like a chocolate bar. Sometimes you can also find smaller individual wax melts which will come in fun shapes like hearts, pumpkins, stars and many more (we often give out these little soy wax melts as free samples in our orders!) and also make occasional special seasonal wax melts such as these cute Christmas Tree Scented and shaped handmade wax melts.
The fun doesn't end here either as candle makers and wax melt makers are always looking for new and novel ways to showcase their best scented wax melts. Wax Melt brittle can have a pretty cool post modern type of Jackson Pollock look to them, there’s also ‘scoopies’ which are lots of mini wax melt pellets the size of skittles which you scoop out of a larger container. Lastly, there's one which I don't know the name of but it's a very soft wax and you can scoop this out of a container a bit like a waxy ice cream!
Rest assured Wild Venus likes to keep it simple and straightforward with our best selling and best smelling wax melt melts. We offer all of our standard 25g wax melt snap bars in our buy 4 get one free offer!
Paraffin vs Soy Wax Melts
Here at Wild Venus we only make our wax melts using pure soy wax. We love soy wax and appreciate that it’s from a renewable and sustainable source. Soy wax for candles and wax melts is a non toxic, natural and biodegradable material which is derived from soybeans.
Soy wax melts at a relatively low temperature which makes them perfect for electric wax warmers and it also means that our wax melts are always compatible with Scentsy wax warmers.
Paraffin wax melts at a slightly higher temperature than pure soy wax melts which makes them a better choice for slightly warmer climates.
Paraffin wax is also a byproduct of mining for petroleum, so although it's coming from a non renewable fossil fuel, paraffin would otherwise be a waste product. Unfortunately paraffin isn't biodegradable with studies showing it would take around 500 years for paraffin to break down naturally.
Paraffin wax is completely safe to use in wax melts although there are a lot of negative perceptions which are centred around the green washing crusade to label paraffin as a toxic ingredient with carcinogenic properties.
Whilst I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with using paraffin wax in candles or wax melts, we use soy because it is the premium product. The consistency of the natural soy wax is thick and creamy and it binds with the fragrance oil perfectly. Soy wax is able to contain the fragrance oil for far longer than paraffin wax and you’ll definitely notice your handmade best soy wax melt out performing your paraffin scented wax melts.
Why Do People Love Wax Melts So Much?
There’s so much to love about wax melts so I’m going to list a few benefits of using our soy wax melts!
- Cheaper than candles
- Can scent a room quicker than a candle
- Economical
- Soy wax melts offer a strong hot throw
- Most wax melts will have more fragrance oil in than a candle.
- Wax melts are safe around pets including your cats and dogs
- Wax melts can be used without flames
- A huge variety of fragrances is available
- These are affordable little gifts you can treat yourself or someone else with
- Scent is such a powerful sense, once you've found your favourite Wild Venus fragrance you will never want to be without it again!
- Soy wax melts are eco friendly, non-toxic and biodegradable.
- You can place your wax melts anywhere to make it smell nice (drawers, wardrobe, car)
How Do Wax Melts Work?
Wax melts work in a similar way to candles but with one big difference - the wick!
When we make candles and wax melts, we combine fragrance with wax. When we either burn a candle or melt a wax melt, as the temperature heats up, the fragrance will evaporate into the air allowing your favourite wax melt or candle fragrance to waft around your room.
When burning a candle, the flame uses the wick, oxygen and wax for it’s fuel meaning that as you use a candle, the wax will disappear as it’s being consumed by the flame.
The biggest difference with a wax melt is that there is no flame that goes directly into the wax and so the wax never disappears. Everytime you melt your wax melt, some of the fragrance will evaporate, over time your fragranced wax melt will become weaker and weaker until you’re left with some unscented wax.
Essential Tools for Your Wax Melt
How to use your wax melts? You’ll need some wax melt tools and the number one essential tool is a wax melter otherwise how are you gonna release all those wonderful strong smelling wax melts to suit your every mood?
If you’re not sure what kind of wax warmer for your wax melts you need then take a look at this blog which will help you decide which type of warmer you need.
Choose from electric powered warmers or traditional candle wax warmers. At Wild Venus we mainly have candle wax warmers but occasionally do feature electric wax melt warmers too.
How to Use Wax Melts? A Step by Step Guide in 9 Easy Steps.
- Choose your style of wax melt burner or wax melt warmer and make sure it’s clean - no dust in the top and no cracks or damage.
- If using a candle wax warmer, you’ll need a tea light - only use 4 hour tea lights, never use maxi tea lights as these can make your wax warmer too hot and it might become dangerous.
- Select the Wild Venus wax melt that you want to use. You can choose from a huge selection of wax melts or if you find all the decisions a bit overwhelming then you can choose a mystery box of 6 different scented wax melts here.
- Once you have your wax melt selected and your wax warmer ready, snap off a piece of your wax melt and place it in the well of your wax melter.
- Light your tea light and place underneath the well, or turn on your wax warmer if you have an electric one.
- Watch as your solid wax melt will slowly melt into a lovely pool of melted wax.
- Enjoy the fragrance!
- When you’ve finished, turn off your melter or carefully blow out the candle. WARNING - shield the wax pool because if you blow too hard you might get wax splattered everywhere! ( I learnt this the hard way)
- You can continue to use this wax melt and re-melt if you can still smell the fragrance. In fact, with Wild Venus wax melts, we recommend that you can use 2 chunks of our wax melts about 3 times each.
How to Clean Your Wax Warmer
If you’re ready to change the wax melt from the wax warmer then you can turn on your warmer again and gently warm it up so that it’s just melted around the sides. When it’s like this you can simply slide it out with kitchen roll or tissue paper. It’s then easy to wipe inside the well so it’s nice and clean inside again.
Essential Safety Tips For Wax Melts
As I mentioned in the step by step guide of how to use wax melts, you should be checking if your wax warmer has any damage at all. Any cracks in the surface of your wax melter means that your wax warmer will have weak spots and might not be able to deal with the stress of heat. For your safety, we would recommend that you replace this warmer otherwise it might break whilst in use and send melted wax everywhere!
Another absolutely essential safety tip that you should be doing is only using 4 hour tea lights. Anything with a longer burn time will produce a hotter flame and your wax warmer may not be able to cope with that level of heat. There have been reports of wax warmers exploding when maxi tea lights have been used.
Don’t leave a wax warmer unattended or fall asleep whilst on. When we have a flame, you need to be aware of it, just in case. Also, make sure it’s out of reach of children and pets.
It’s also advisable to place on top of a coaster as depending on the surface the heat may cause damage.
All of the above safety tips are really only applicable to candle wax warmers, so if you think you’re likely to want to leave your wax warmer on for a solid 10 hours straight, you’re worried about your wax warmer catching fire or you have too many cats and dogs to worry about knocking it over, then an electric wax warmer might be the most suitable choice of wax warmer for you.
What are the Best Wax Melts and Which Ones Should I Avoid
The best wax melts are the ones which YOU like the most and avoid anything you don't like! When we live with other people sometimes we have to make compromises on our fragrance choices, all for the sake of a harmonious life.
Luckily, my partner is well used to me testing wax melts every single day and doesn't mind too much. Occasionally there’ll be a fragrance which will give me a headache but these reactions are all very personal and not the same for everyone.
I love so many different types of fragrances depending on my mood. For focus it will be a fresh pine scent like Call of the Wild, a minty Ice Queen or marine Rock Salt and Driftwood. A new favourite for my office is Spiced Saffron and Mandarin which is a really fresh and cool citrus. Basically anything from the Clean and Fresh collection (apart from Fresh Linen!)
For a relaxing evening I go with a dark, floral and sometimes perfume inspired such as Forbidden or maybe a more unusual scent like Inky Night Skies or The Fortune Teller which smells like a delicious Turkish Delight!
My top energising day time scents change all the time but right now I’m craving Sun Salutation.
For house shares which need a more neutral background scent then my best scented wax melt recommendations for you are: Blue Lagoon, a fresh, slightly salty floral laundry and coconut scent; Creamy Vanilla, its long lasting and inoffensive; 1881, a very delicate barely there floral; Crackling Log Fire for the illusion of a log burner and there’s many many more. You’ll probably find lots to inspire you in the Calm and Relaxing Collection of scented wax melts.
Whichever wax melts you choose, from our Wild Venus premium range of soy wax melts, do make sure you’re melting your wax melts safely and disposing of your wax melts responsibly when you’ve finished with them.