No, You Shouldn't Put Laundry Scent Beads In Your Wax Warmer. Here's Why

Wax warmers infuse your home with your favorite scents without the added concern of an open flame. While these homeware items are great for filling your rooms with delicious and inviting aromas, a new trend has arisen that might just ruin them for everyone. For some reason, testing the limits of laundry products has become a cultural phenomenon, and while people have (hopefully) stopped trying to ingest Tide Pods, social media has seen an uptick in people melting laundry scent beads in their wax warmers to produce a "just laundered, clean clothes" smell. However, this trend is dangerous — don't try it at home.

Adding laundry scent beads to a load of dirty clothes produces a pleasant aroma that can last longer thanks to the ingredients found in the beads. The tiny balls dissolve in water, layering your clothes with ingredients that maintain a scent multiple wears. If you like your clothing, linens, or other washable fabrics to smell fresh every time you use them, these beads might be a good addition to your laundry product collection. However, they should not be used in a wax warmer (and they shouldn't be used to create a fresh-smelling garbage disposal, either).

When it comes to melting laundry scent beads in your wax warmer, Procter & Gamble (which owns Tide and Fabreeze) recommends skipping the trend. A customer service representative said that "it is not safe to heat or use scent booster beads in wax warmers or oil burners." After all, laundry scent beads contain chemicals that might not be healthy if ingested through the process of heat and aromatics. If you're looking for a fresh laundry scent, brands like Febreeze offer actual wax melts that are safe for warmer use.

Some people avoid fabric softeners and scent boosters altogether, which is why you might want to think twice before adding them to your laundry. While the products do go through a wash cycle, which reduces their potency, ingredients like polyethylene glycol can induce anaphylaxis in those sensitive to certain chemicals. The oily coating that keeps clothes soft and contains scent can also make fabrics flammable, so using these on high heat is a hazard.

You can also purchase premade wax melts at your local home goods stores or online, or even make your own to have total control of all the ingredients that go into them. You can find recipes online (like a DIY cinnamon wax melt!), and most of the products needed to create these melts can be found on Amazon.