Wax melts: what to buy and what the pack does not tell you

The most useful single thing we found compiling this section. Four of the five brands we index sell six-cube packs. Those packs contain 2.3 oz, 2.6 oz, 2.75 oz and 5.5 oz of wax. The largest holds nearly two and a half times the wax of the smallest for the same headline count.

Per cube, that runs from roughly 0.38 oz to roughly 0.92 oz. So a Milkhouse cube and a Glade melt are not comparable objects, and a warmer dish that comfortably takes two of one will overflow with two of the other.

Compare on ounces, never on cube count. Divide the pack weight by the count before you compare anything, and check the result against the dish you actually own.

The number that decides value in home fragrance is hours per pack, because it is the denominator in every comparison worth making. Three of the five brands we index publish no hours figure at all. A fourth has one that appears on retail listings but not on the maker's own product pages, so we label it as a retail figure rather than promoting it to a specification.

Two of the biggest names here are owned by Procter and Gamble and SC Johnson - companies with technical documentation teams and regulatory departments. Neither publishes a wax composition for its melts. We are not suggesting anything is being hidden; the likeliest explanation is that these are supermarket impulse products where nobody expects the question. The consequence for a buyer is the same either way: you cannot compare them on value.

That is why we rank brands on documentation in the brands roundup. A brand that publishes hours and a dose can be checked. A brand that publishes nothing is one you buy on price and hope.

Running wax long after it has stopped working, then buying a different brand which works for a day and does the same thing.

Fragrance oil evaporates out of the wax; the wax stays behind and will melt and re-solidify indefinitely. A candle visibly gets shorter. A melt gives you nothing to look at. Compounding it, your own nose stops registering a constant smell within about ten minutes, so the room can smell perfectly good to a visitor and of nothing to you.

The practical fix is to treat it as a timer rather than a visual check - roughly 8 to 12 hours of running per standard cube, or the maker's published figure where one exists. And the honest test for whether anything is wrong is to leave the room for ten minutes and walk back in. The full diagnosis, in order of likelihood.

Choose the fragrance before you choose anything else. Cats have fewer of the liver enzymes needed to metabolize certain essential oils, which is why they are affected by things other animals tolerate. The Pet Poison Helpline names wintergreen, sweet birch, citrus, pine, ylang ylang, peppermint, cinnamon, pennyroyal, clove, eucalyptus and tea tree; VCA names an overlapping list.

Read that against how home fragrance is marketed and the collision is obvious. Citrus is the default clean note, pine is Christmas, cinnamon and clove are autumn, and peppermint and eucalyptus are the entire bathroom category.

We do not label any product safe for cats - that is a veterinary judgment and we hold no credential. What we do is point at the lists so you can check the pack in your hand: wax melts and cats.