Scooter M.

An enthusiast. Someone genuinely into this, which is a different thing from someone who has been into it for a long time - and the difference matters, so I am going to be precise about it.

I read manuals. I compile published specifications and put them side by side. I do arithmetic that manufacturers could have done and did not. No lab coat, no credential, no certification, and no claim to be an authority on anything.

I got into this the way most people do: a situation where candles stopped being an option, and then a lot of listings that would not tell me what wattage anything was.

This is the important part of the page, so it goes near the top rather than in small print at the bottom.

• I do not test these products. I own none of them. I have not burned, run, timed or measured a single one.
• I accept no samples, free product or sponsorship. Nobody has sent me anything and nobody has paid for a position.
• I hold no relevant credential. Not in fragrance, chemistry, electrical safety or veterinary medicine. When this site tells you what is toxic to a cat, it is quoting the Pet Poison Helpline and VCA and linking to them - it is not my opinion, because my opinion on that would be worthless.
• I write no first-person experience I have not had. No "when I first tried these", no "in my testing", no "after six months of daily use".

Every page ranking above this site leads with a testing claim. I could write one in about four seconds. It would be a fabrication and an FTC deception, and it is the easiest thing in the world for a competitor to falsify. So it does not appear here.

Compile what manufacturers publish, and print the source and the date next to every number so you can check it. Read the actual product pages rather than another review site's summary of them. Compute running costs from rated wattage and label the electricity rate as the assumption it is. Check every safety claim against a named authority and cite it in the sentence rather than in a footer nobody reads.

And say "not published" when something is not published, which in this category turns out to be constantly.

That produces a different site from one written by somebody with forty warmers in a garage. It also produces one you can check line by line, which the forty-warmer version is not. The full method.

I will get things wrong. When that happens I would rather know.

Email info@thewaxindex.com or use the contact form. If you can point at a source, that helps, but it is not a requirement - "this number looks wrong" is a perfectly good message and I will go and check.

Corrections get dated and logged rather than quietly edited away, which is set out on the editorial policy page. A site built on showing its working does not get to be precious about being shown its working.