Scenterpiece Melt Cup hack

*Updated Scenterpiece melt cup hack post in 2018, found here

When Yankee Candle debuted the Scenterpiece warmer in August of 2014, I scoffed at it saying, Who needs it? My tart burner has never let me down and the tarts are only 1.99. I’m not paying 4.99 for these large melt cups. Fast forward a little while later after experiencing a friend’s Scenterpiece, and I became a convert. I own three now! They seem to be a fairly popular product; however, I think Yankee shoppers either love their Scenterpieces or have zero interest in getting one. There are some pros and cons to the unit.

Pros:

• the throw on the melt cups are super strong (some scents are actually a little too strong for my small living room–one being Sparkling Snow)
• you can easily change out the scents without needing to use up an entire cup; just turn it off, let it cool and switch scents.
• the timer feature-on the units priced 24.99-34.99 is a plus.  I’ve wasted a few tarts by forgetting to turn them off.  The timer feature solves that issue and is probably safer than leaving a unit on all day/night.

Cons:

• cost of the cups is 4.99, two and half times the amount of a tart.  I tend to offset this with sales or coupons.
• the warmer takes about 30 minutes to liquefy the cup, releasing the scent.

I know of people using tarts in their melt cups (they don’t melt fully), but I don’t know if anyone has tried using votive candles and I was curious, so I tried it.  

 First, I cleaned out a previously used up melt cup (put in freezer for an hour and the wax pops out)  I chose a Magical Frosted Forest votive that I got at the semi-annual sale for .50 apiece.

Next, I pried off the metal wick holder from the bottom of the votive using a butter knife, it came up easily.  Then, I used slight pressure on the knife at the opening to split the votive in half.

I broke the half into pieces so it would melt evenly, turned the warmer on and…20 minutes later I had a pseudo-melt cup!

At first, I wasn’t satisfied with the amount of throw, it was definitely weaker than the melt cup wax. You can see there was a thin spot in the pool of wax, so I broke off another piece and added it to the cup for a total amount of about 2/3rds of a votive. This seemed to do the trick and after about an hour of using, I’d say the throw was nearly as good as that of a store-bought melt cup. I’m speculating that there is more oil in the melt cup’s wax because they don’t need to burn, just melt.

Fragrance: Magical Frosted Forest went with my woodlands theme, however, I find it underwhelming. It’s not as ‘piney’ as some other scents, and not as outdoorsy fresh as I like, either. A rather nondescript scent I was willing to experiment with and does have a freshness to it, but ends up fading into the background and losing its presence.

Performance:  On a purchased melt cup–very powerful. On my psuedo-melt cup, nearly as good. I consider this experiment a success!

Recommendation: It’s likely Yankee Candle doesn’t recommend substituting votives for melt cups, but I say it works. If you have a large, open floor plan to fill, or just really enjoy strong fragrance throws then a Scenterpiece warmer will not disappoint.

If you already own one and wish you could have more fragrance options, this hack is a way to keep costs down using votives and maybe even mix two different scents together. I’ll have to give that a try another time.

-jaybird