Here’s a little step-by-step guide to assist:
1. Check your burner, they can make a massive difference! If you are using an electric burner, check the bulb wattage. Most use a 40W bulb, but the lower the wattage, the less scent throw you will get. Check it out, but please don’t go changing to a higher wattage bulb - much safer to buy a new burner!
If your burner dish is close to the heat below it, this is probably an oil burner, which is not suitable for wax melts as it will burn the scent off far too quickly.
If it has a small dish, you will only have a small melt pool, BIG is better and will give you a far stronger throw due to the larger surface area of the melt pool.
2. Whereabouts is your burner?
Placing your burner on a lower table or unit (obviously out of the way of pets or children) will help with your scent throw as hot air rises and will give a better throw. Also placing it in the centre of the room will ensure the scent permeates in all directions, including the whole of your house as the hot air rises!
Using the same theory, avoid placing a burner on shelving against a wall or on a window sill, as the scent won’t disperse as effectively as in the centre of a room.
3. Don’t leave your burner on for great lengths of time. It will cause you to have “nose-blinding” or making yourself immune to smelling the scents. Eventually, we become so used to smells that our noses simply don’t smell them any longer! Turn them off at night, and regularly change fragrance – you will find things smell a lot stronger!
4. Dry air. In winter, we have our heating on in the UK, and this dries out the air in homes. When air is too dry, the scent no longer has humid molecules to cling to and will not smell as strongly. Try dropping the thermostat a degree or two. The molecules move much more slowly in the air when the temperature drops.
Remember though, our noses don’t work as well when they are cold, it is a very fine line to success!
Likewise, always place them away from windows or a direct air flow (i.e. a fan or air-con) in summer.
5. Keep cool! If you have a stock of wax melts or candles and keep them for a while, make sure they are kept at a cool temperature in the original wrapper, and then sealed in a tight-lidded container.
If they are kept in a warm environment, some of the scent may dissipate before they are used.
6. Fragrances are all designed and manufactured differently. Some have a more subtle, mild throw, where others are intended to be strong.
And again, what smells wonderfully subtle to one person, may seem way too strong for another. Each person’s genetic nasal receptors are totally different, and what may be lush to me, may be an awful stink to you!
Give these ideas a go – you never know they may help!