For a long time, I’ve been aware of scent warmers, devices that heat scented wax with a tea light or electricity to scent a room. I never quite saw the logic of these devices. After all, if one wants to melt aromatic wax, that’s what scented candles are for, right?
I even like the color! …of the current wax, anyway. (Photo: Mark A. Zeiger.)
Then, one day recently, I realized that I have saved many little plastic bags full of scented candle fragments, hoping to use the rest of them, eventually. Each and every one scented our home admirably, until the wick burned up.
I used to steal the wicks from tea lights to put into the center of these candles, to eke out a few more lightings, but those don’t work so well.
So, I went to our local secondhand store, where, as has always been true since the original owner first established it (see In Praise of Secondhand Stores) I found what I looked for. And, it was on sale!
Since then, I’ve been slowly burning through (as it were) my stash of aromatic wax. The infuser has proven a really good purchase, as I’m not only cleaning out our storage, but the house smells really nice! When I want a new fragrance, I melt the current wax, then, while it’s hot, pour it onto a cool surface. When it solidifies, I stick it in a plastic bag to use some other time, and put a new fragrance in the warmer.
Ideally, I’d melt some of these candle fragments and make new candles from them, but that requires wicking, which seems surprisingly hard to come by these days. I now know that, with the wax warmer, I get the same effect without the time, effort, and energy of remelting the wax and installing wicks. And, with the tea light contained in a little ceramic housing, that makes for slightly safer room scenting than an open flame lit candle.
Why resist the pun? It’s a “common scents” solution to getting the most out of scented candles.