What Do You Need To Start Making & Selling Wax Melts? Equipment Checklist for Beginners

A selection of measuring cups is a must for measuring out fragrance oil.

Think of adding fragrance oil to your wax the way you would think of adding salt to a dish you were cooking...

If you pour it in directly, you risk adding too much, and once it's added, you can't take it out!

Measuring fragrance oil out beforehand not only ensures that you have the correct amount to hand at the time you need it, but also ensures that your wax does not cool too much before adding your oil.

We recommend silicone measuring cups over plastic. 

This is because many fragrance oils will actually will eat through the plastic's exposed layers and can even eat through enough to leak through onto your table top or workspace.

We have dabbled with using shot glasses in the past, but they are too easily broken, either dropped while reaching for them or dropped in the sink while washing them up!

Hotplate / Plug-in Hob

A plug-in hob is extremely beneficial and useful to you if space is an issue.

It's very compact and can be stored away in a cupboard or on a shelf. (once cool of course)

A big reason you may want to invest in a plug in hob such as this is because s it's important to keep fragrance oil away from food.

We also recommend not to make wax melts in your kitchen. (if you are lucky enough to have a space room this would be ideal) Fragrance oil, if spilled, can damage laminate counter-tops.

When using this hob, we found that the perfect heat setting was between 2.5 and 3.

Once the water is bubbling, you can change it between 2 and 3. These hob's are the perfect size to accompany a double boiler.(see below)

Double Boiler

The double boiler will allow you to use boiling water to melt your wax without the fear of the base getting too hot and burning your wax. We will use the same technique as though we were melting chocolate.

We recommend to NOT use a double boiler with the lid on.

The reason for this is that moisture from the air may get trapped in the mixture and cause irregular finished to your end product due to mixing water into the wax. (Also keep your water at a simmer, not a full on boil)

To use a double boiler, all you need to do is fill some water in the bottom reservoir (enough so that the top pot is touching the water but not so much that it risks boiling over).

Double boilers are very beginner friendly as they allow you to make small batches fast and tidy up afterwards without the need for a large work space.

We recommend only using unscented wax in a double boiler and to always mix your scents in a separate jug. This means that you will rarely have to deep clean your double boiler and reduce the risk of cross contamination of fragrance oils.

Pyrex Jugs

We recommend Pyrex jugs to beginners as opposed to metal pitchers because you can clearly see the colour of the wax while mixing. (Pyrex jugs also take up less space)

This is very important when you are starting out because a metal pitcher makes it hard to see the colour of your wax and it may appear much darker while mixing. 

This will result in you getting a different result than you planned for when mixing. (Usually a very washed out and pale version of the colour.)

The below product bundle is a good variety of Pyrex jugs. You get a 250ml, 500ml and 1 litre jug. These sizes should be enough to make any wax melt you could need, they can also be used to create candles.

Infrared Thermometer

We recommend the infrared version as opposed to the needle version because:

• You don't have to keep cleaning it between uses
• You don't need to expose it to direct heat (Having the thermometer in a boiling pot inherits a risk of melting or causing a fire if you forget it's there.) 
• You avoid a lot of cross contamination.

On top of these points. You can use the infrared thermometer for many other uses, such as measuring candle vessel temperatures

It's also helpful around the home to for measuring forehead temperature, finding moist spots in the walls, checking food temperatures. You could not do the same with the needle version.

If you have large pot/double boiler, then a stick thermometer will give you the reading of the base of the pot. The infrared version is slightly more to buy, but it will see you through your small business journey. 

Additional Equipment :

We recommend getting all of the equipment on this list (including the additional equipment) but the below is not directly needed to make wax melts when beginning, it just makes your life a LOT easier. 

Heat Guns:

Heat guns have many uses, from cleaning surfaces (melting wax and mopping up with paper towel) to fixing those blemishes on the top of candles/wax melts.

We even use them to heart up silicone moulds for a better finish. (You can check out our blog post on this here.)

There are 2 types of heat guns.

We recommend starting with the craft size heat gun which is great for heating containers, melting wax etc). It can even be used to heat up plastic clamshells (the big heat gun will melt them).

Craft Heat Gun: (Reaches 200 degrees)

The larger heat gun will reach much higher temperatures meaning that you will melt wax / heat up surfaces much faster. However, if used incorrectly it can shatter candle vessels and completely melt plastic clamshells at ease.

DIY (Large) Heat Gun: (Temp's Between 50-600 Degrees)

(This listing comes with a bundled scraper and accessories at no additional cost!)

Cooling Rack 

Often overlooked, the cooling rack is a must-buy for any wax melt maker!

We use it to set the top part of the double boiler down when we're ready to mix our oils into the wax. You can also use this for any hot jugs.

5ml Pipette Droppers

(This is a 100 pack so should keep you going for a little while)

To keep a clean and tidy work space, we recommend using pipettes when measuring your fragrance oil.

Spillages happen most commonly when trying to pour fragrance oil directly, especially when you use fragrance oils larger than 250ml/g! These pipettes come in especially useful when overpouring fragrance oil to take a few ml out again.

They can also be used to fill up your small mould with wax.

Though the 5ml pipettes may be slightly more expensive that the 3ml version, you will save SO MUCH time with the extra 2ml per drop. 

Paint Scraper (Wax Scraper)