4 Beginner Tips For Making Wax Melts
Wax melts are the best friend of candles. They serve a unique purpose because they don’t have a wick to hold them back. Additionally, they’re usually more portable and safer since they don’t require a flame.
Even though wax melts have been around for awhile, companies like Scentsy have done a lot for building their awareness. Wax warmers or melters are all over the place – anywhere you can buy candles you’ll usually find a melt section.
If you aren’t aware already, melts are a square of wax no different than what you find in a traditional candle. The main difference is they don’t have a wick and therefore require a special piece of equipment to consume. They literally melt… thus the name “wax melt”.
The introduction doesn’t stop there, either. Wax melts that appear more decorative or come in a funny shape are called tarts. Often crafted from a silicone mold, tarts allow the melt makers a creative outlet beyond just pouring a square. More on that below.
If you’re interested in making melts, or just want to learn a few quick tidbits about them, you’re in the right place. Here are four beginner tips you should consider for making wax melts.
Wax Melts Usually Require Special Wax
One of the main appeals of wax melts are the small, extremely consumable size. They’re typically less intimidating than a candle, especially since you don’t need a lighter to use them. Melting wax with a warmer presents a far safer activity than lighting a candle.
Whereas most candles come from a mold or live in a container, wax melts often begin their life in clam shell packaging.
Here are two primary considerations for selecting a wax for melts or tarts.
Mold Release
Much like a mold, you need to remove the melt from the packaging before use.
“Packaging” means a few things, especially if you’re making tarts from silicone molds, but they end up removed either way even if it’s just to a bag of other tarts.
This in-and-out requirement means your wax needs to release from packaging easily. Different manufacturers have created wax blends that behave with incredible “mold release” consistently. Container wax is designed to adhere to sides, which means it’s typically not a fantastic wax choice to accommodate melt design.
Not that using container wax like NatureWax C-3 or Golden Wax 464 is detrimental, but it’s not perfect. Additives like Vybar, which help shrink the wax more as it cools, enhance the mold release if you’re set on using it for wax melts.
However, even if you manage to enhance container wax for mold release, it potentially struggles in the other main area.
Melt Point
When candle makers talk about soft wax, they’re usually describing wax with a lower melt point. Soy typically melts lower than paraffin, palm or coconut, which helps with adhesion and form-fitting, but is terrible for firmness.
If you’re making pillars, votive candles, or anything that needs structure, soy is a poor choice. As is anything with melt temperatures below roughly 130 °F depending on circumstance. The potential for slight melting on a hot day completely disrupts candle “stand-ability”.
Creating wax melts or tarts from pure soy or anything with lower melt points means temperature and storage could significantly impact pre and post performance.
Wax warmer power users know that every melt typically runs out of hot throw before the entire amount of wax is gone. They also prefer the ability to rip and replace wax melts if they aren’t enjoying one or just want to melt a different one. Soft wax makes it really hard to pop the wax disk from the melter (after it’s harder).
It’s not impossible to make melts from soy (or low melt point wax), but higher melt points and stronger structural wax holds up far better during transport on hot days. They also become much easier to remove from warmers when their time has come.
Recommendations
Selecting a wax for tarts or melts is quite easy! Look for blends created for melts, which typically hold a higher fragrance load and have a higher melt point. You can also incorporate pillar and votive blends since they are designed for mold release and stability. A few examples include:
- Ky Para-Soy Tart & Votive Blend – super highly regarded by the candle making community. Rustic Escentuals bought the company responsible for initially developing and marketing this wax.
- Golden Wax Melt & Tart Soy Wax – a classic soy wax blend made extremely popular and approachable for beginners and pros.
- IGI 4625 Pillar Blend (paraffin) – made for pillars but very adaptable for melts, this paraffin wax has fantastic mold release and hot throw capabilities.
Make sure to experiment for what you find valuable. Keep reading for some considerations to make when testing melts and tarts.
The Melting Apparatus Makes A Huge Difference
Hot throw depends on a lot of factors in the candle system, including the melt pool. Traditional candles balance the melt pool temperature with a wick, but melts and warmers rely on electricity.
Tealight warmers might use a flame, but the concept below remains the same.
The enormous variety in wax warming technology complicates melt design. Choosing a wick is by far the most important decision in candle making, but it’s a closed system. The wick is the wick, and nothing can change that.
Wax melts are a portable product, consumed by an endless variety of warmers and melters. Why does this matter? Because each warmer will raise the melt temperature to a different level which impacts the effectiveness of the warmer.
Electric warmers generate heat according to the wattage of the bulb. Higher wattage’s produce more heat and raise the melt pool of the wax higher than lower wattage bulbs. This means finding the sweet spot for your particular wax melt design is completely in control of the customer instead of the wick.
You may test melts with a 15 W electric warmer and have perfect scores across your hot throw scoreboard, but a customer using a 25 W warmer may get nothing from it because it burns too hot.
Or, you might build a melt design that operates perfectly when the melt pool is especially hot, meaning your customer also needs a high-temp system to make the most of your melt design. There’s a lot of variability in this, which means education is critical.
In general, higher temperature wax melts may throw better and with more aggression for a shorter amount of time whereas a low temp system may have a lighter throw but last longer.
Warmers operate on a spectrum and every melt design is different. If you can capture decent performance on a wide range of temperatures, you’re more likely to build a successful melt – invest in multiple warmers (or variable temperature warmers) for testing.
No Wick Means More Opportunities
Wick selection is an art rooted in a significant amount of testing. They’re also incredibly restrictive because they’re responsible for balancing an extremely sensitive combustion system.
Too much fragrance oil? Clogged wick.
Pigment based coloring? Clogged wick.
Neat glittery decorations? Clogged wick.
Weird balance of oxygen in the room? Mushroom party.
An evolution in candle making might be wickless someday, but it may also include lifting the burden of fuel delivery and temperature management from a single instrument in the candle band.
What we know of as restrictions in a candle are actually opportunities in wax melts. Since you don’t have to worry about open flame or wick health, you can incorporate other elements into your design, like:
- Mica powder
- Non-wax embeds (but be careful not to put anything flammable in it)
- Titanium dioxide (for coloring wax white)
- Glitter, as mentioned above
Wax Melts Open The Door For Creativity
Sticking out on the candle market becomes a task of it’s own if you’re in the business of selling candles. Etsy has thousands of candles, and they all seem to blend together over time.
Even the clam shell wax melts all look the same too, but this is merely the surface.
Your true creativity comes through designing tarts of your own. The beauty of picking the right wax is you can make a wax tart of almost literally anything you can think of. Yes, there are plenty of “candle oriented” silicone molds to use if you’re going back to the same suppliers every other week, but there’s an entire non-candle world that exists for you to explore too!
Anything you can safely pour wax in and pull out of is an opportunity to express creativity. You can even combine different melts and tarts with each other by using a heat gun to lightly melt the edge of a finished tart to place the other directly on it.
If you’re worried about producing something that’s unique and yours, explore the wax melt and tart world. Learn to make your own silicone molds (Pinterest is a great place to start) and inspire others with your outbound creativity!
If you’re interested in a fill-in-the-blanks style candle testing worksheet you can print off (also known as a printable), you can download a free PDF here!
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