Wax Melts & Oil Burners

A candle burns once and it is gone. A 50g bar of wax melts breaks into six or seven pieces, each one good for several evenings in a £4.95 burner, which is why the running cost works out at about 11p an hour against 19p for a jar candle.

The burners here are glazed ceramic and take a standard tealight underneath. Fragrance oils are sold separately from £2.95, and the same burner takes either — melts in the dish dry, or a few drops of oil in water.

Everything arrives boxed with no prices inside, dispatched from Yorkshire in 1–2 days. UK delivery is £3.95, or free once the basket passes £30.

Choosing one

Start with what they already own. If a burner is already on the shelf, buy the wax: the lavender bar is £3.95 and breaks into six or seven pieces, and the Windermere box of eight at £12.95 covers a whole winter.

If there is no burner, the square Buddha burner at £4.95 is the least expensive way to start and takes both melts and oil. The plain white version costs the same and suits a room that is not decorated this way.

For someone who would rather not light anything at all, the amethyst diffusing crystals at £16.95 take a few drops of oil on the stones and need no heat or power at all. If you are weighing melts against candles on cost, we worked the numbers out.

If it is scent generally rather than melts specifically, home fragrance is the wider shelf, and candles covers the version with a flame. For a housewarming, the new home shelf pulls the same pieces together with the gift in mind.

Questions we get asked

Are wax melts cheaper than candles?

Yes, once the burner is bought. We worked it out on our own prices: a 50g bar of melts at £3.95 runs to roughly 11p an hour, where a jar candle works out nearer 19p. The burner itself starts at £4.95 and lasts for years.

How do you use an oil burner?

Put a tealight in the space below and either a piece of wax melt in the dish above, or water with a few drops of fragrance oil. Never heat oil in a dry dish: it smokes, smells burnt and marks the glaze.

How long does a wax melt last?

One piece scents a room for around eight hours of burning, spread over several evenings. The scent goes before the wax does, so change the piece when you stop noticing it rather than when the dish looks empty.

Do wax melts smell as strong as candles?

Usually stronger, because the wax is heated by a tealight rather than consumed by a flame, so more fragrance is released and none of it is burnt off. In a small room, half a piece is often enough.