How many times can you burn a wax melt?

Before anyone purchases a wax melt, one of the questions they might be asking themselves is “how long do wax melts last?” It’s a reasonable question. It’s one we had to think about when we started our business Teddy Eva Scents. It’s all well and good having a wax melt that smells nice before it’s lit, but you want one with a long burn time to get the maximum value for your money. What’s the burn time of wax melts? Well, let’s find out!

First things first, I should say what I mean when I say “burn time“. Essentially, all burn time means is the length of time – usually given in hours – that a wax melt will last before all of the fragrance oil has evaporated and the scent has disappeared. The longer the burn time, the longer the wax melt will last and the happier you will be.

Technically, the question “how long do wax melts last” is a hard one to accurately answer. And I’m no scientist here to dish out candle science. But I’ll still try my best to give you a realistic answer to this question.

There are actually many different factors that come into play that determine the burn time of any given wax melt. Some are controllable by the person burning the wax melt, others are controllable by the person who makes the wax melt.

How the making process of a wax melt can affect the burn time

Amount of fragrance oil used

It seems obvious to say, but how the wax melt is made goes a long way in regards to how long it actually lasts. Go figure. The biggest factor is usually how much fragrance oil is added to the wax melt. It’s not quite as simple as “the more oil added, the longer a wax melt will last”. But usually, a wax melt with a fragrance load of 10% – meaning 10g of fragrance oil to 100g of wax – will last longer than one with 6% or less. Before any wax melt owners get on my back, I know that’s not always true. If you add too much oil to certain waxes then the additional oil won’t bond to the wax and the extra oil will make ZERO difference to the overall throw and burn time of the wax melt.

The wax itself

Next comes the actual wax itself. Waxes will vary from seller to seller with everyone going for different blends or versions of soy, paraffin or other types of wax. Generally speaking, the vast majority of sellers will be using soy wax. Some may use beeswax which typically lasts longer, but it’s also more expensive.

As a buyer it will be extremely unlikely that you’ll be able to know the exact wax that a seller uses. You’ll likely know the type of wax. Whether it’s soy or paraffin, for example. But there are a bunch of variations of soy wax with many people choosing their own blend of wax and possibly additives.

How long the wax melt has to cure

Every wax melt needs time to cure. In short, that means that the wax and the fragrance oil need time to meld and bind together. It’s a little bit like a good stew. Everyone knows if you make a stew it’s going to be better the next day. The same can be said for wax melts.

For soy wax melts, you want at least 7-10 days to pass before you consider lighting it. For most people this isn’t going to be an issue. Even if a seller makes a wax melt and sends it out the next day, by the time it arrives it may have already had a few days curing. Then if you don’t light it for several days it will cure further.

If you have bought wax melts and lit them on the same day and don’t find the scent that strong, then perhaps the wax melt just didn’t have enough cure time. So give it another go at another time and then see what you think.

The making process of the wax melts

This is something that often gets overlooked when it comes to wax melts and their burn time. But how the wax melt is physically made is very important as to how long it will inevitably last. The temperature of the wax when the oil is added is a simple thing that could throw off the binding process and negatively affect the scent. And even something as obvious as stirring the mixture. If it’s not stirred well then it’s not all going to bind and the wax melt won’t last as long as it could.

Here are our £1.20 Teddy Pot samples! Which should give a burn time of 16-20 hours per pot!

At the end of the day, as a consumer you can’t control any of that. But there are some things you can control in order to get as much burn time as possible from your wax melts.

How the buyer can affect the burn time of a wax melt

Now it’s not just how the wax melt is made that affects the burn time, it’s also how it’s used.

How you store your wax melts can affect their burn time

For a start, if you store your wax melts together and they’re physically touching each other wax-on-wax then that may affect the smell as they’ll inadvertently mix. This is usually why people like buying clamshells as they are all individually packaged and therefore won’t mix scent.

How you burn your wax melts will also help decide their burn time

Lastly, when you burn the wax melt, how you decide on burning it will decide how long it truly lasts. To put it simply, the higher the heat, the quicker the scent will be used up. Here’s an example:

As you can see, if you burn your wax melt at a higher temperature, then more molecules of fragrance oil will be released and the quicker it will be used up.

Everyone likes different wax burners. Generally speaking, electric burners burn wax melts at a lower temperature than candle burners – although they do tend to have some sort of temperature control. So burning at a lower heat is always an option if you want to expand your burn time. Personally, I’ve never liked electric burners as I like a higher temperature from candles. Or maybe I’ve only ever had crap electric burners. Either way.

Teddy Eva Scents – The only wax melt company I can really give accurate burn times on

I hope you’ve managed to gleam something from this post. If not, then I’m sorry. On the off chance that you’ve read this and now fancy trying something new when it comes to wax melts, then I can talk to you about a wax melt company I know a little bit about.

My wife and I just so happen to run a wax melt company called Teddy Eva Scents. As such, we obviously use our wax melts fairly often to test them so we can offer ballpark figures on our burn times.

To give you a rough idea, I’ll use our Extra-Large Teddy Clamshells as an example.

So our Teddy Clamshells are around 100g split into 6 segments. When we burn a segment we tend to leave it in the burner for 4-6 burns. Sometimes less as we like to mix it up and try something else, but for certain scents like Snow Fairy we’ll keep it in for days!

We use 4-hour tea lights, meaning each burn will last four hours. So that’s a total of 16 hours (24 if done for 6 burns) for each segment of a clamshell. Times that by 6 for each segment and you’re talking at least 96 hours of burn time for a single clamshell! That means a single clamshell if used every single night, should be able to last you for at least 24 days! At £5.49 a clamshell that means it’ll basically cost you less than 22p a day to have fours of room-filling scent!

Furthermore, since you’ve read all the way down to here, and I really go appreciate it, feel free to come on over to the website, use the code ISABLOG10 and we’ll give you a bonus 10% off!

Thank you for reading! I hope I managed to answer your question of “How long do wax melts last?” – maybe you now know a little more about the burn time of wax melts. If you ever wanted to buy wax melts and test them for yourself, then feel free to head over to our little family-run business in Teddy Eva Scents. Or you can follow us on Instagram. Or neither. It’s your choice.

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