Soy wax melts

Melts have no wick or flame, releasing scent through gentle warming instead. You place a cube in an electric or tealight warmer, which melts it slowly so the fragrance evaporates into the room without any burning. This makes them safer around children and pets and means no wick to size or trim. The scent keeps releasing until the fragrance oil is spent, at which point you replace the cube, whereas a candle gradually burns away its wax.

Usually the fragrance was added too hot or the load was too low. Adding fragrance oil to wax straight off the heat causes much of the scent to flash off immediately, so let the wax cool to around 60 to 65°C first. Soy wax also needs a fragrance load of roughly 8 to 10% by weight to throw scent well, so weigh both wax and oil. Letting the melts cure for a day or two before use strengthens the scent further.

Soy wax is the standard choice for melts. It holds fragrance well and releases scent strongly at the relatively low temperatures a warmer reaches, and it is plant-based and easy to work with. Specific melt or container soy waxes are sold for this purpose. You can blend in other waxes for harder cubes, but plain soy wax flakes are the simplest, cheapest, and most reliable starting point for a beginner making melts.

You can, but they fade quickly and disappoint in melts. Many essential oils evaporate readily at warmer temperatures and lose their scent fast, so melts made with them often smell weak and short-lived. Fragrance oils formulated for wax are designed to release scent steadily when warmed and give a much stronger, longer throw. If you prefer essential oils for natural reasons, expect a subtler, briefer scent and use them at the higher end of the load.