Modern Style Ceramic Tear Drop Oil Warmer, White, 4x4x7.75

They are very attractive. I have a white one, black one, and blue one. White and black are clearly what they are, but the blue one is a rich, deep blue with black blended. It's dark but lovely, so don't be dissapointed if it looks black in some light or isn't "blue" enough.Let me address a few of the negative comments in reviews because they raise good points.The weakness of the weld of the wire hanger to the base: it is more than adequate for what it is designed for. Don't put stress on it, and it won't break. It isn't supposed to take any weight greater than the ceramic bowl and some oil. It is a delicate stand, but it should handle what it is designed for without trouble.Soot: Soot accumulation is from incompletely combusted fuel and results when colder parts of the flame are in contact with a surface. You can see this by watching a candle burn with the flame wrapping around an item held above it--lots of black soot. Also, the hottest part of a candle's flame is some distance above the flame--the exact point depends on several factors. Air movement, the size of the wick, the type of wax, etc. will all bear on where the hottest spot is. I sometimes get a little soot on the bottom but not most of the time. Who knows why. It wipes off easily from the glazed portion of the bowl but not the unglazed portion on the bottom. Not a big deal.Heat and damage: This is simple. If you use the candles the manufacturer recommends, the tip of the flame will be 1.5 to 2 inches from the bowl. I used a temperature probe and the temp under the bowl right up against it never comes anywhere near the 1200+ degrees at which porcelain is fired (the most I got was below 400 degrees). This distance is enough to make soot accumulation rare. Basically, if the bowl survived being made, it will survive a small candle. Having said that, the heat absorbed by the bowl dissipates throughout the bowl, and the contents of the bowl doesn't get as hot. 212 degrees, enough to boil water, is not unreasonable to expect though, and it makes perfect sense that the contents might boil. But I don't use liquid, so I can't measure the temp of the contents very well.Also, these sit on a book shelf less than an inch from books. It's the only place that air movement in the room doesn't affect the flame. The heat transfer laterally doesn't even prevent me from putting my finger next to it, and the books don't even get warm. Also, no soot on the books. The next shelf up is about three inches above the whole holder and the probe reads a temp above the holder and below the shelf above of about 85 degrees when the rest of the room is about 70 degrees.Time of candle burn: this is also simple. X amount of wax with a given wick will burn for a certain amount of time. Purity of the wax will affect the flame. So will air movement--candles burn longer in still air--moving air delivers more oxygen and so the candle burns faster--seems counter-intuitive because candles can blow out, but you know from camping that blowing an embers creates flame. An untrimmed wick will also affect the time because the size of the flame will determine the rate of wax consumption. So it's no good complaining about the product because the candle burned too fast! Get the right candle, pay attention to it's rating, and if it doesn't deliver a burn time reasonably close to what is advertised, buy different candles and try again. I was originally skeptical about the little tea candles and the distance of the bowl from the flame, so I decided to try it and then adjust either the height of the candle or the size of the candle. I think slightly closer to the bowl might work and a slightly thicker wick (tea candles have tiny wicks) might also work, but the little candles do work well. You just don't want a lot of fire under this thing--it isn't necessary. Your arent' searing a burger!Oil, water, and incense: I bought these for dry incense, not oil. I did my research and based on expected temperatures, I thought a direct flame from a candle with a small wick (as per recommended tea candles--mine are from Ikea) under a ceramic bowl with dry contents was a safe risk. Here's what happens in my bowl: it never gets hot enough for the contents to smoke or actually burn at all, so there is never any burned on carbon to clean. The incense gets as hot as it gets (I'll assume at this point it might get over 200 degrees but nowhere near the <400 degrees under the bowl) but isn't consumed. Instead, the oils in the product vaporize and the remaining incense dries out and gets very hard. Once it's cooled and I shake it into my hand, the incense is hard and has very little scent left. No mess, no clean up, and while it's heating, it fills the room with scent but no smoke. The scent is less intense than burning incense, but it also lasts longer and smells more pure (no smoke contamination).Price: This seems like such a nice compromise over brass holders that cost so much: it was that cost difference that got me to experiment with these. I know porcelain can break and I can't nuke it with larger candles, but gently heating my incense works for me. If mine ever blows up or gets so sooty I can't clean it, I'll repost. But don't expect to hear from me though because I did the research and have tested it--it seems the results are what they are.Disclaimer: I know nothing about putting oil in here. I also only use loose, granular incense, not the hard kind that you can buy at any cheap store. It's spendy incense. But assuming the temp in the bowl gets close to 212, it will boil water and the oil will vaporize. Therefore, it will work. But, the boiling water will want a smaller candle, not a larger one (who wants splatter?). Based on what I find in a dry bowl, I think no water, just oil, would be the ticket. If the oil in my incense vaporizes without danger so will straight oil. But because the oil will make a more positive contact with the bowl than granular incense, it might vaporize faster, resulting in more intense scent dispersion. It will also get hotter inside the bowl but never hotter than the bottom, right? The oil will combine with the whole bowl to act as the heat sink and will actually cool the whole thing down a bit--so your oil will be hotter than my incense, but your bowl will be slightly cooler than mine. It's physics.Sorry about writing such a long post about a simple and inexpensive product. But, so many of the reveiws are so emotional and ill-informed that I had to say something real.EDIT: 12/27/23. Crazy. Eight years later, we don't use them very often anymore, but they still look good and none have broken!

I bought this white tear drop oil warmer and it was purchased as an add-on item (so I thought it might take a week to arrive) but it arrived with my Prime items two days later! I was so happy and surprised to see it arrive so soon! But, I really preferred the white color over the others. So, this is a very stylish little warmer and I think the quality is just fine for the price. There was a bit of a rough edge on the inside part but it is one of those things that is only noticeable to one person and no one else would probably care or see it. For the price, it is great! I was concerned when I read a review by a person who said the wax scented cube wouldn't melt. I made my scented wax melts (with beeswax, a little coconut oil, essential oils) and they melted just fine. So, I am really happy with this purchase. I will upload a few photos of my oil warmer.

I've never tried heating oils to make a room smell nice. I love coming into a room and smelling something nice. I'm a fan of air fresheners in cans and solids, I love candles, and I probably own a thousand sticks of incense, and whenever I see some quirky new way to make my house smell nice, I usually give it a try. While out running errands with a friend the other day, I found a little collection of "warming oils" in one of the aisles at a store and decided to snatch up a few since they were only $2 a piece. The warmers they sold alongside these oils were all big and expensive and electric and I figured I could find a warmer much cheaper on amazon. That's when I found this little thing. It's not the most attractive looking object I own to be sure (though the color selection was nice) and I wasn't expecting much from it (I felt the oil reservoir was too high from the flame to be effectively heated), but after trying it once I feel like telling the whole world about it!I filled the little white part with a thin layer of gardenia oil (enough to cover the bottom) that said not to dilute the formula. I slipped in a tealight candle I had lying around, lit it, and waited. Within a minute or two, I smelt gardenia floating around me at my desk and when I looked over at it, I could see faint little wisps of steam/smoke, showing that the oil was being heated. After all the gardenia oil was used up, I moved the warmer to another room, cleaned out the cooled-down white part of any remaining oil, and filled it again with a new scent. It worked perfectly the second time!Now, the only drawback is that this doesn't come with any tealight candles and that tealight candles (which are what this is sized to fit; I wouldn't try to put any larger candles under this since when with a flame so small the white oil holder can get pretty hot) are pretty easy to burn through very quickly. A single candle yields maybe 1-3 sessions of oil if you just put in a thin layer to over the bottom. But it's fortunate that you can easily buy a whole big bag of tealight candles from just about any store for only a few dollars. Since I've only been using it for a short time, I can't say how long lasting it is. It doesn't feel like the most study object in the world, but if you just set it somewhere and don't go crazy filling up the whole thing with oil it seems like it should last a while and do just fine. It's only $5 and I think for the money it's definitely an excellent oil warmer.If you dislike having open flames, this might not be the warmer for you, since it does require a lit candle to work. I think just to be safe this shouldn't be left alone. But if you can handle a little candle flame or you know an electric plug-in model would be no good for you and your needs, then I think for $5 this is an absolutely great buy that works just fine. I'm definitely going back to the store soon for more candles and oil! I think this method is even more effective than candles, plus I can try mixing together scents for personalized combinations, which is a perk you can't get as easily through candles or incense or air fresheners.

I don’t use this with plain oil at all, but the design it has makes it very easy to use for that purpose. They even include instructions so the piece isn’t damaged accidentally if used that way. I use it for the prepackaged scents that are sold in many stores. I’ve had difficulty in the past finding a warmer that was large enough for the pieces these scents come in. In the past I had to worry if the warmer would spill. With this one there was no spills it’s pretty large you can pull enough scents in there to fill a medium to large sized room.

This item does the job but its a pain to clean