1 · What this guide covers
Hand-poured wax melts: choosing the wax, working out what a fragrance percentage actually means, what happens after pouring, and why the same melt behaves differently in two people's homes.
It is not a recipe. There is no universal fragrance load, no universal cure time, and no universal warmer temperature — and the useful part of this guide is explaining why each of those is true rather than saying "it depends."
2 · What changes when there's no wick
A candle burns its own wax. The wick draws liquid wax up into a flame, and the wax is consumed as fuel.
A wax melt doesn't do that. The warmer heats the wax, fragrance leaves, and the wax stays in the dish.
That removes most of what makes candles difficult. No wick sizing. No tunnelling, no mushrooming, no soot, no burn testing across three wick series to find the one that gives a full melt pool. The hardest and most-tested part of candle making simply isn't there.
⚠️ It also removes control over the heat. A candle maker chooses the wick and therefore, within limits, the temperature of the melt pool. A melt maker chooses none of it. The customer buys a warmer, and that warmer decides how hot your wax gets.
The practical consequence most makers meet through customer complaints: a used wax melt doesn't disappear. The scent fades and the wax remains, because the wax was never the fuel. People expect it to burn down like a candle and it doesn't.
A safety standard puts a number on how little is supposed to leave. UL 283 requires a container holding a consumable to be liquid-tight with a cover removable only by tool — and then carves out an exception for "carrier-based products such as fragrance in wax", on condition that the consumable is not appreciably depleted over its stated fragrance life. Clause 27.3 puts a figure on "appreciably": more than 15 % of total volume.[1]
One more thing changes. Mica powder and heavy botanical inclusions are a problem in candles because they clog the wick's capillary path or sit in the flame zone. Without a wick, neither applies — which is why melts carry decorative effects candles can't.
⚠️ That is not the same as saying inclusions are safe. No wick removes the wick-specific hazard. It doesn't make every additive appropriate in a hot dish, and it says nothing about what's safe to breathe or to handle.
3 · Choosing a wax
Melt wax and container wax are different products — but not two universal classes.
The clearest pair is Golden Brands. GB-494, sold for tarts and melts, has a drop point of 125–135 °F on the manufacturer's data sheet[2] and a pour temperature around 160 °F.[3] GB-464, the container soy most makers start with, has a lower drop point — the manufacturer's data sheet gives 113–118 °F.[4] Its pour temperature is not AAK's either: the sheet gives none, and the 135 °F figure makers use comes from suppliers.[4]
⚠️ GB-494 is discontinued. CandleScience's page states "As of 12/16/2020 This product is discontinued and no longer available".[3] The pair is still the clearest illustration of the difference; it is not a shopping list.
⚠️ AAK and CandleScience give different figures for GB-494. AAK's data sheet gives a drop point of 125–135 °F; CandleScience's listing gives a melt point of 120–125 °F. Those are different measurements, and we've recorded both rather than picking one.[2][3]
Then read Cargill's listings, where NatureWax C-3 and C-6 are both offered for containers and tarts and melts.[5][6] Same wax, two applications, according to the manufacturer.
⚠️ So the answer isn't "melt wax exists as a category." It's: check the manufacturer's stated application for the specific wax, not the name on the bag.
What the higher drop point buys you is heat resistance in storage and shipping, and different handling behaviour when you take the melt out of the mould. Both are real considerations. But the chain from drop point to clean release runs through the specific formulation, and it isn't a rule you can apply across waxes.
Three temperatures, not one
This trips up nearly everyone coming from container candles:
| Drop point | a property of the material |
|---|---|
| Melting temperature | how hot you take the wax in the pot |
| Pour temperature | a process instruction, set by the wax and the mould |
These are different measurements, and no single document publishes all three for GB-494. AAK's data sheet gives the drop point, 125–135 °F, and nothing else on this list.[2] The pour temperature, around 160 °F, comes from a supplier's listing, which also gives a melt point of 120–125 °F: a different measurement from AAK's drop point.[3] No AAK document we found gives a melting temperature at all.
⚠️ So a maker assembling the three is reading a manufacturer sheet for one and a supplier page for the others. That is the trap this section is about: each number is real, they were never published together, and a supplier quoting one is not telling you the others.
4 · What a fragrance percentage actually means
⚠️ Before any number: find out what it's a percentage of.
There are two conventions in circulation, and sources routinely fail to say which they're using.
wax basis = fragrance mass ÷ wax mass × 100
finished basis = fragrance mass ÷ total batch mass × 100
A melt of 92 g wax and 8 g fragrance is 8% on the finished basis and 8.7% on the wax basis. Add dye or filler and the two diverge further.
This isn't pedantry. One commercial patent (US 10,010,638) states that fragrance in wax melts generally falls between 3% and 8% of the total composition by weight.[7] Maker guidance almost always means percentage of wax. Put those side by side without checking and you get a gap that isn't there.
⚠️ We state the basis every time we quote a percentage. Where a source doesn't, we say so.
⚠️ And a fourth denominator exists that no maker guidance uses. The same UL 283 exception caps the fragrance at no more than 30 % by volume of the container's contents.[1] Not wax mass, not finished mass, not fragrance mass — volume of contents. It is a different quantity again from the three below, and it is the only one of the four that appears in a safety standard rather than in supplier advice.
⚠️ Do not convert it and treat it as a load percentage. Volume and mass are related by density, wax and fragrance oil do not share one, and the standard says volume. This page publishes no conversion, because the conversion would need a density for each material and the exception would then rest on our arithmetic rather than on the clause.
Three numbers people treat as one
The IFRA limit. CandleScience says that in most cases the candle categories, 11 and 12, have "a maximum allowable usage of 100%, meaning there is not a restriction on the amount of fragrance that may be used".[8] But that's a property of the specific fragrance mixture, not of the category. Read the certificate you hold.
The wax's tested capacity. What the manufacturer's documentation says the wax holds without the fragrance separating out.
The load that performs best. Determined by testing, and not necessarily either of the above.
These are rarely the same number, and none of them is "the fragrance load."
Syneresis
The industrial word for what makers call sweating: the liquid fragrance separating from the solid wax matrix and appearing on the surface.
The same patent reports syneresis at higher loadings in its own formulations, and describes fillers used to change how much fragrance a composition holds.[7]
⚠️ The threshold is formulation-specific. Don't take a number from one patent's compositions as a universal ceiling.
Where IFRA sits
IFRA's documents name candles, not melts. The 49th Amendment moved candles from Category 11 to Category 12, the category IFRA defines as "products not intended for direct skin contact, minimal or insignificant transfer to skin." Its Guidance never names wax melts, tarts or warmers.[9]
Suppliers such as CandleScience put melts in Category 12: "Candles and other home fragrance products, like wax melts, have moved from Category 11 to Category 12."[8] That is a supplier's reading of IFRA's categories, not IFRA's wording, and the page gives no reason for it. The reasoning it implies is that a melt's exposure resembles a candle's — heated in a dish rather than applied to skin — which is what Category 12 describes.
⚠️ Use the Category 12 row on the certificate you hold. Your fragrance supplier's IFRA certificate is where the limit for that fragrance is stated, and Category 12 is the row a melt is read against.
The 51st Amendment is what's currently in force — notified 30 June 2023, with compliance dates of 30 March 2024 for new creations and 30 October 2025 for existing ones.[10] Both have passed.
⚠️ Those dates apply to fragrance mixtures placed on the market, not to finished melts on a shelf.
The 52nd Amendment isn't in force. Consultation closed 12 June 2026; IFRA's End of Consultation Letter of 31 August 2026 describes the final package as 48 new restriction Standards, 15 revised, a revised Musk ketone Standard, a new specification for Acetylated Vetiver Oil, and three revised phototoxicity Standards.[11]
⚠️ IFRA's own pages give two different dates for the notification — one says late November 2026, the later letter says January 2027. We've recorded both rather than picking one.[12][11]
The furocoumarin consolidation in the 52nd doesn't affect melts. It confirms 1 ppm for products intended for deliberate sun exposure and 5 ppm for other leave-on products, withdrawing eight individual Standards in the process.[11] Those are skin-contact limits. If you also make soap or lotion, read it. For a melt, it changes nothing.
5 · Cure, set, and aging
"Cure" is doing three jobs in most maker conversations, and separating them makes the disagreement tractable.
| Set | the wax is solid enough to handle, demould, pack |
|---|---|
| Stabilisation | the physical structure of the wax and fragrance is still changing |
| Performance aging | the throw itself changes with elapsed time |
A wax manufacturer specifying a minimum before handling is answering the first. A maker saying "wait two weeks so the fragrance bonds" is claiming the third, with a mechanism attached.
What the sources say
| Source | Says |
|---|---|
| Fragrance Oils Direct[13] | tested melts at one day and two weeks — throw identical. Their fragrance manufacturer and wax supplier both said ~48 hours for the wax to set |
| Mattys Candles[14] | minimum 48 hours, a week for complex scents |
| HiQiLi[15] | test at 3–5 days, again at 1–2 weeks for soy |
| Seventh Avenue[16] | 7–14 days, two weeks "the standard" |
The mechanism argument
Fragrance Oils Direct doesn't just report a different number. They attack the usual explanation: if fragrance oil chemically bonded to the wax during cure, it wouldn't release when heated — it would stay bonded and you'd smell nothing. They suggest the two-week rule is borrowed from cold-process soap, where water genuinely does need to evaporate.[13]
They're right that a covalent bond would trap the oil. That explanation can't be correct as stated.
⚠️ But "bonded" isn't the only alternative to "nothing happens." Fragrance can sit physically within a wax matrix and later partition into the air without any chemical bond forming or breaking. The real question isn't whether it bonds. It's whether the physical state of the formulation changes enough, over time, to change measurable release.
That's testable, and it's the reason this section doesn't end with an answer.
What a test would have to show
Hold constant: wax, fragrance, load, warmer, melt mass, room, heating duration, and how you assess it.
Compare the ages that matter to you — 1 day, 2 days, 7 days, 14 days.
Decide before you run it what size of difference would count as meaningful. Otherwise you'll find one.
6 · The warmer is part of the product
You make the melt. The customer makes the operating conditions.
Three heat sources are common for melts: a tealight under a ceramic dish, an electric hotplate, and a bulb warmer. A fourth, a lamp above the vessel, heats jar candles rather than melts. All four, and what the controls and certification marks do and don't tell you, are in the wax warmer guide.
⚠️ Wattage is not temperature. An 18 W plate doesn't produce "18 W of heat in the wax." It supplies energy to a system that loses heat through the dish, the housing, and the air, reaching whatever equilibrium that system reaches. Two 25 W warmers with different dish geometry will not give you the same pool.
The chain is longer than most guides admit:
electrical input → heater temperature → thermal path → dish → melt pool → evaporation → room concentration → what someone smells
⚠️ There is no public dataset connecting the warmers people actually own to the temperature their wax reaches. Individual measurements exist in device literature and patents, but they aren't comparable across devices and none of them is a retail comparison.
That question belongs in the wax warmer guide, not here.
What it means for you now: hot throw isn't a property of your fragrance oil. It's a property of the fragrance, the wax, the warmer, the melt mass and the room together. A customer reporting weak throw may be describing your formulation or their appliance, and you can't tell from the report.
7 · Making them
Weigh everything. Drops and volume aren't units.
Melt fully, and record the temperature you melt to rather than stopping at "melted." For these waxes there may be no published figure to aim at: AAK's sheets give a drop point, not a melting temperature.[2]
Add fragrance at the temperature the wax documentation gives. CandleScience recommends 185 °F;[17] Mattys Candles gives 80–85 °C.[14] Both are supplier figures for their own products, and neither supplier explains the mechanism. Treat the addition temperature as a variable to control and record, not one to reason about.
⚠️ Flash point is not the addition temperature. It's a handling and transport property from the SDS. For you at the bench it is a fire-safety number about the liquid in your hand, and it does not tell you when fragrance binds into wax.
⚠️ It is not unrelated to operating temperature everywhere, though, and the earlier wording implied that. In UL 283 the two are tied together: clause 28.1 requires the fragrance's flash point to sit at least 30 °C above the operating temperature at the wick or pad.[1] That is a requirement on a certified appliance and the consumable sold for it — not a rule for your bench, where you choose an addition temperature for a different reason.
⚠️ And two suppliers' flash points may not be comparable. Clause 53.1 names five permitted methods — UL 340, ASTM D93 (Pensky-Martens), ASTM D6450, ASTM D7094 and ASTM D3828 (Setaflash) — and all five are closed-cup. Open-cup determinations read several degrees higher, and a supplier sheet does not always say which method produced the number. Check the method before comparing two figures, and note that UL 499 asks for the same 30 °C margin on soap kettles but names ASTM D93 specifically: one property, several legitimate measurements, not interchangeable.
Stir gently. HIQILI's guide says to "stir gently for about two minutes";[15] you're dispersing, not whipping air in.
Pour cooler than you would into glass. This is the reversal that catches candle makers out. A clamshell is plastic with a thermal limit, and suppliers publish different numbers for different products. Fillmore Container says many customers pour at 140 °F (60 °C) or lower into its rPET clamshell.[18] Windy Point lists a maximum pour of 160 °F (71 °C) for a PET clamshell,[19] and Midwest Fragrance Company gives 180 °F (82 °C) for another.[20] Lone Star Candle Supply says to pour its PVC clamshells at 150 °F (66 °C) or less.[21]
⚠️ Read the stated maximum for the clamshell you bought. Those PET listings are 40 °F apart, and the PVC one sits inside their range, so the name of the plastic doesn't tell you the limit.
Cool away from draughts, and leave them alone until they're set.
8 · Safety, and what the air holds
On the bench
You're handling hot wax and concentrated fragrance oil. The flash point on the SDS matters here — it's a fire-safety number about the liquid in your hand.
In use
The warmer is a consumer appliance and part of the product's safety, not just its performance. An oil burner is not a wax warmer; the dish is too small and sits too close to the flame.
⚠️ ASTM F2417 is a candle standard and F2601 covers candle accessories.[22][23] Neither governs wax melts. Don't cite them as though they were melt specifications because the products are adjacent.
And one standard does describe a wax melt, which is worth knowing precisely because the two ASTM specifications above do not. UL 283 defines a consumable as something used up or disposed of in use, "including one that stays as it is or turns into pellets, gel, or liquid in use".[1] That is a wax melt, described.
⚠️ Read the scope before taking comfort or alarm from it. UL 283 is a standard for the appliance and for the consumable sold for use with it. It does not reach a clamshell you make and sell on its own, and nothing here says a maker's melts must meet it. What it does establish is that the product category is described in a safety standard, with figures attached — the 15 % depletion limit in section 2, the 30 % volume ceiling in section 4, and the flash-point margin above.
In the air
Flame-free is not emission-free.
A 2025 study in Environmental Science & Technology Letters (Patra et al., Purdue) measured scented wax melts in a residential test house. Terpenes released from the heated wax reacted with indoor ozone to form nanoparticles at concentrations above 106 cm−3 — comparable, the authors note, to combustion candles, gas stoves and diesel engines.[24]
The control is what makes it citable: an unscented melt produced no terpene emissions and no particle formation. Under that protocol, the emissions came from the scented formulation rather than from heating wax alone.
⚠️ Three limits belong with that finding. The measurement is particle formation, not a health outcome — the authors say explicitly that toxicology work is still needed. The chemistry isn't unique to melts; any indoor terpene source does it. And it's one house, one protocol, and the results depend on which fragrance is in the wax.
What it doesn't support: "wax melts are as bad as diesel." What it does support: a heated fragrance product puts volatile compounds into a room, and those compounds participate in indoor chemistry.
9 · Labelling
Everywhere
Category 12 is a fragrance-safety categorisation, not a labelling regime. It tells you nothing about what has to appear on the pack.
United States
The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act sets the federal baseline for covered consumer commodities: identity, net quantity, and the name and place of business of the responsible party.[25]
⚠️ Net quantity is a measurement claim, not a marketing number. "3.0 oz" on a clamshell is something a weights-and-measures inspector can check.
UK and EU
Do not treat these as one jurisdiction. The frameworks diverged and they need separate reading.
In the EU, a mixture classified as hazardous under the CLP Regulation carries a unique formula identifier: Annex VIII says the submitter "shall print or affix the UFI on the label of a hazardous mixture", linking the product to its poison-centre notification.[26] Great Britain differs. The UK's National Poisons Information Service says "there is no obligation to generate or submit a unique formula identifier (UFI) code in Great Britain", and submitting information on hazardous mixtures is voluntary there.[27]
⚠️ Classify the mixture you poured, not the fragrance oil you bought. A supplier's ready-made CLP sheet at 10% only describes your product if your product is at that load on that basis. Change the percentage and you may have changed the regulatory identity of the mixture, not just the recipe.
10 · When it fails
Organised by mechanism, because symptoms don't map one-to-one onto causes.
Formulation
Oily surface, beads of liquid, greasy clamshell. Syneresis. The load exceeds what this formulation holds, or the cooling was slow enough to form large crystals that squeezed the oil out. Reduce the load, or change wax.
Too soft to handle, sags in the pack. Wax drop point too low for the application, or ambient temperature during storage.
Won't release from the mould. Wax and mould mismatch, or demoulded before fully set.
Process
Weak throw, no obvious defect. Fragrance added outside the wax's window, or under-stirred. Check both before touching the load.
Warped clamshell. Poured above the pack's stated maximum.
Delivery
Strong at first, gone in an hour. Can be the warmer, the fragrance's own volatility, or the load. A hotter warmer drives off the most volatile material faster, and the same melt on a cooler plate behaves differently — so compare the same melt on another warmer before changing the recipe.
Good cold throw, weak hot throw. Can be the warmer, the melt mass, the fragrance's own volatility, or the person's nose adapting. These need separating before you change the recipe.
"It stopped smelling." Olfactory adaptation is real and rapid. Whether emission stopped and whether detection stopped are different questions.
Over time
Scent faded in the pack. Fragrance degrades by oxidation and volatility loss. Lighter material goes first, so the balance shifts as well as the strength.
11 · What this guide won't decide
The right fragrance load for your wax. Three different numbers claim that title and only testing separates them.
Whether two weeks does anything in your formulation. The disagreement is real and unresolved. Section 5 says what a test would need to show.
What temperature your customer's warmer produces. Nobody has published a comparison across the warmers people actually own.
How long a melt will smell. No shared protocol exists for the claim, so the numbers on packaging aren't comparable to each other.
Whether a decorative additive is appropriate. No wick removes the wick problem. It doesn't answer the question.
Sources
- UL Standards & Engagement, ANSI/UL 283, Air Fresheners and Deodorizers, Fourth Edition, 20 March 2025. 4.13 defines a consumable as a material intended to be used up or disposed of in use, "including one that stays as it is or turns into pellets, gel, or liquid in use". 27.3 requires a container for a consumable to be liquid-tight with a cover removable only by tool, with an exception for carrier-based products such as fragrance in wax where the fragrance oil or gel is no more than 30 % by volume of the container's contents and the consumable is not appreciably depleted over its stated fragrance life, "appreciably" being more than 15 % of total volume. 28.1 requires the fragrance flash point, determined per 53.1, to be at least 30 °C above the operating temperature at the wick or pad. 53.1 names UL 340, ASTM D93, ASTM D6450, ASTM D7094 and ASTM D3828. ⚠️ Read from the standard itself, 18 September 2026. ⚠️ SCOPE, AND IT LIMITS EVERY FIGURE ABOVE: UL 283 covers the appliance and the consumable supplied for use with it. It is not a specification a maker's clamshell has to meet, and this guide claims only that the category is described there. The closed-cup point is this page's own reading of the five named methods, not a sentence in the standard. The wax warmer guide cites the same edition for its appliance clauses. ↩
- AAK, Golden Wax® 494 Product Data Sheet, product 5715-94-77GW, version 02, document date 2023-01-31. Description: "Specially formulated premium soy wax flakes for use in wax melts and tarts." Mettler Drop Point 125–135 °F. Version 01 (2018-05-18) gives the same figure. AAK's own Golden Wax brochure lists 494 under "Wax Melt/Tart". ⚠️ The sheet is AAK's document but is hosted by a retailer; AAK's site links no data sheets. ⚠️ The sheet gives the drop point only. Neither version gives a melt point, a melting temperature or a pour temperature, and no other AAK document found does. The 160 °F pour is CandleScience's (source 3). ↩
- CandleScience, AAK Golden Wax Melt and Tart Soy Wax (AAK Golden Wax 5715-94-77GW, "also called 494"). ⚠️ Supplier source. Properties: "Melt Point 120-125°F", "Pour temp 160°F (+/- 5°)". ⚠️ Recorded beside AAK's figure, not in place of it: CandleScience gives a melt point, and AAK (source 1) gives a drop point, a different measurement. The page also links a "Product Info" sheet, which is AAK's Product Information Sheet for Golden Wax 5715-94-02 (version 02, 2016-04-27), and that sheet gives a Mettler Drop Point of 125–135 °F, not 120–125 °F. ⚠️ The page states "As of 12/16/2020 This product is discontinued and no longer available". Read through a rendering reader, 17 September 2026. ↩
- AAK, Golden Wax® 464 Product Data Sheet, product 5702-02-77GW, version 03, document date 2024-03-26. Description: "Specially formulated premium soy wax flakes for container candle and wax applications." Mettler Drop Point 113–118 °F. AAK's Golden Wax brochure lists 464 under "Container Candles". ⚠️ Same hosting note as source 2. ⚠️ Suppliers publish a "melt point" for GB-464 in the range 113–120 °F. That is a different measurement from AAK's drop point, not an earlier version of it; the text uses AAK's figure, as instructed. The sheet gives no pour temperature; the 135 °F pour is a supplier figure. ↩
- Cargill, Cargill™ NatureWax™ C-3 vegetable wax, Product Description (EU). Applications: "Scented Containers • Tealights • Votives • Tarts/Melts". ↩
- Cargill, Cargill NatureWax® C-6 vegetable wax, Product Description (US), ©2022. Applications: "Scented Containers • Tealights • Votives • Tarts/Melts". ↩
- SC Johnson & Son, Inc., US Patent 10,010,638 B2, Wax melt with filler, filed 14 June 2016, published 3 July 2018. "The amount of fragrance oil found in wax melts generally falls between 3% and 8% of the total composition by weight." "High loadings of fragrance oil in wax-based compositions can lead to syneresis, the bleeding of fragrance oil from the wax substrate." In one trial a melt with 10% talc accepted 12% fragrance, against 8% with no filler. ↩
- CandleScience, IFRA 49: What Candle and Soap Makers Need to Know: "Candles and other home fragrance products, like wax melts, have moved from Category 11 to Category 12." … "In most cases, these categories have a maximum allowable usage of 100%, meaning there is not a restriction on the amount of fragrance that may be used". ⚠️ Supplier source: a supplier's reading of IFRA's categories, and one supplier's statement. "These categories" follows a sentence naming Category 11 and Category 12. IFRA's own documents (source 9) do not name wax melts. Read through a rendering reader, 17 September 2026. ↩
- IFRA, 49th Amendment package: Guidance for the Use of IFRA Standards, p. 59, "Candles to new IFRA Category 12". The previous placement is in the 48th Amendment package: IFRA-RIFM QRA Information booklet v7.1, 9 July 2015, p. 21, "Candles Category 11". The definition of Category 12, "Products not intended for direct skin contact, minimal or insignificant transfer to skin", is from the current Guidance for the Use of IFRA Standards, 51st Amendment, p. 52. All extracted with pypdf. ⚠️ None of the three documents names wax melts, tarts or warmers. The 51st Guidance's Table 12 lists "Candles of all types (including encased)" and no melt, tart or warmer entry. ↩
- IFRA, Notification of the 51st Amendment to the IFRA Standards, 30 June 2023, p. 1: Standards apply "9 months after the date of the Notification (i.e. March 30, 2024)" for new creations and "28 months after the date of the Notification (i.e. October 30, 2025)" for existing ones. ↩
- International Fragrance Association, IFRA 52nd Amendment – End of Consultation Letter, 31 August 2026, 16 pp., extracted with pypdf. p. 1: the consultation "came to an end" on 12 June 2026, and the Notification is "likely in the second or third week of January 2027". p. 10: "a total of 48 new restriction Standards". Contents §7: 15 restriction Standards revised; Musk ketone revised to include restrictions; Acetylated Vetiver Oil revised to include a specification (1% α-tocopherol); "Revision of 3 restriction Standards addressing phototoxicity considerations". p. 4: the 1 ppm limit turns on "the presence of an SPF claim". p. 15: eight individual Standards "will be withdrawn and will no longer be valid" (Angelica root, Bergamot expressed, Bitter orange peel expressed, Cumin, Grapefruit expressed, Lemon cold expressed, Lime expressed, Rue). ⚠️ A consultation outcome, not a notified Standard. Nothing in the 52nd is binding until Notification. ↩
- IFRA, IFRA 52nd Amendment Consultation closed, published 15 June 2026: "The formal Notification is expected towards the end of November 2026." ⚠️ Open. IFRA's End of Consultation Letter (source 11) and its news item of 31 August 2026 both give January 2027. Both dates are recorded, as the text says. ↩
- Fragrance Oils Direct, Cure Times for Fragrance Oils in Wax Melts and Candles, andrew sanderson, 9 June 2022. ⚠️ Practitioner source: a UK supplier's blog. "We have tested our wax melts at one day and 2 weeks+ and the throw is the same." Their fragrance oil manufacturer and a wax supplier "both gave the same answer – around 48 hours for the wax to fully set". On bonding: "the fragrance oil would not be released and would remain chemically bonded to the wax". On soap: "We suspect that curing is part of the mystique transferred from cold press soap". ↩
- Mattys Candles, The Practitioner's Guide to Fragrance Oil for Wax Melts, Lewis Romane, undated. ⚠️ Practitioner source. "We recommend a cure time of at least 48 hours, but for some complex scents, a week can produce even better results." Fragrance addition "between 80°C and 85°C (176°F – 185°F)". ⚠️ The same maker's How to make wax melts page gives a different cure figure: "at least 7 days, but 1-2 weeks is ideal". ↩
- HIQILI, Long-Lasting Wax Melts: 9 Fixes for Weak Scent, HIQILI Editorial Team, updated July 2026. ⚠️ Practitioner source, a fragrance oil seller. "Test after 3-5 days, then again after 1-2 weeks if you are using soy wax or a soy-heavy blend." "Many wax melts can be tested after 3-5 days, but soy wax melts often smell better after 1-2 weeks." Testing intervals, not a minimum or an ideal cure time. ↩
- Seventh Avenue Apothecary, How Long Soy Wax Melts Need To Cure, 14 October 2024. ⚠️ Practitioner source, a candle and melt maker. "The recommended cure time for soy wax melts typically ranges from 7 to 14 days." "A two-week curing period is considered the standard". ↩
- CandleScience, How to Make Clamshell Wax Melts: "Once the wax reaches 185 degrees (85°C), add … fragrance oil." ⚠️ Supplier source. CandleScience pages build their text in the browser, so this was read through a rendering reader. ↩
- Fillmore Container, 6 Cavity Wax Melt Clamshell | PET Plastic (CS06-PET): "Many candle clients successfully pour wax at temperatures of 140°F or lower in the rPET clamshells." ⚠️ Supplier listing, one product. A customer practice, not a stated maximum. Read 17 September 2026. ↩
- Windy Point Soap Making Supplies, 6 Cavity Wax Melt Clamshell Mold - 3 oz: "manufactured from clear PET"; "Max Pour Temperature: 160°F". ⚠️ Supplier listing, one product. Read 17 September 2026. ↩
- Midwest Fragrance Company, Single Cavity Clamshell Molds | For Wax Melts: "Material: 0.024" PET"; "Recommended Pour Temp: 140°F - 180°F (Max Temp 180°F)". ⚠️ Supplier listing, one product. Read 17 September 2026. ↩
- Lone Star Candle Supply, Clamshell Molds: "Pour Temperature 150°F or less". The material is stated in the page's own questions and answers: "They are made out of PVC." ⚠️ Supplier listing, one product. Read 17 September 2026. ↩
- ASTM International, F2417-26, Standard Specification for Fire Safety for Candles. Scope 1.1: "minimum safety requirements for candles and candle ensembles". Cited for scope only. ↩
- ASTM International, F2601-25, Standard Specification for Fire Safety for Candle Accessories. Scope 1.1: "minimum safety requirements for candle accessories"; a candle accessory is an "object designed, intended, or marketed for use with a candle". Cited for scope only. ↩
- Patra, S. S., Jiang, J., Liu, J., Steiner, G., Jung, N., & Boor, B. E., Flame-Free Candles Are Not Pollution-Free: Scented Wax Melts as a Significant Source of Atmospheric Nanoparticles, Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2025, 12(2), 175–182. DOI 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00986. ↩
- US Federal Trade Commission, Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1451–1461: labels must disclose "net contents, identity of commodity, and name and place of business of the product's manufacturer, packer, or distributor". Cited for the federal baseline only. ↩
- Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/542 of 22 March 2017, adding Annex VIII (harmonised information relating to emergency health response) to Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008 (CLP). Part A, section 5.2: "The submitter shall print or affix the UFI on the label of a hazardous mixture." Section 5.1: the UFI "unambiguously links the submitted information on the composition of a mixture … to a specific mixture". ⚠️ Read in the EU text as adopted, hosted on legislation.gov.uk, because EUR-Lex refused automated requests; later amendments (including application dates) were not read, and no date is taken from it. ↩
- UK National Poisons Information Service, Industry: GB-based importers and downstream users "are encouraged to continue to voluntarily submit information … on hazardous mixtures placed on the GB market"; "There is no obligation to generate or submit a unique formula identifier (UFI) code in Great Britain". The same page says Annex VIII applies in Northern Ireland. ⚠️ Undated page. Read 17 September 2026. ↩