Can You Light Candles in a Hotel Room?


Lighting a candle is a great way to bring a beautiful fragrance and relaxation into a room. For this reason, it would be perfect to be able to burn a candle in a hotel room. What’s better than creating relaxing atmosphere in your hotel room?

Unfortunately, most hotels don’t allow you to burn candles in their rooms because it can lead to the alarm going off and it poses a risk of fire.

There are other ways to fragrance your hotel room, though, that will make you forget about wanting to have lit a candle in the first place.

Instead of using a candle, you can use an electric wax warmer to fragrance your hotel room. You could even use an essential oil diffuser to get the fragrance you’re craving.

Can You Light Candles in a Hotel Room

Why Aren’t Candles Allowed In Hotel Rooms?

While it may seem like a good, or romantic, idea to bring your candles on your getaway to a hotel, it’s generally frowned upon. Some hotels will even fine you if they find out you’ve been burning a candle.

Lighting a candle is a potential fire hazard, which is the primary reason you are not allowed to light candles in hotel rooms. Hotels don’t want to risk you creating a fire if you happen to knock over your candle or leave it next to a flammable object. While you personally may be a responsible candle burner, hotels don’t want to take the chance that someone will be irresponsible and leave it burning unattended.

Another reason hotels don’t want you burning your candles is because candles can produce smoke and soot that can ruin the room or set off the smoke alarms. The smoke released from the candle also has the possibility of staining the ceiling above it. If you damage any part of the room, you will have a hefty fine to pay in order to replace or repair what was damaged.

When you blow out a candle, you are releasing smoke. While it’s not much smoke, it is enough to set off the smoke detector in your hotel room. When the hotel room smoke detector goes off, it sends a signal to the control panel that will then set off the fire alarms in the rest of the hotel to go off, which will then lead to a building wide evacuation.

After the alarms throughout the whole building go off, the closest fire department will be notified and send out emergency personnel. Because of this disturbance and having firefighters being brought out, you will have to pay a fine that varies on price depending on the hotel and the area it is in.

What Can You Use in Place of a Candle?

While candles can be a great way to create a relaxing or romantic atmosphere in a hotel room, there are other ways to achieve your desired feeling without needing a flame.

You have options of using electric wax warmers or electric essential oil diffusers. The keyword here is definitely electric. As discussed earlier, you cannot have a flame in a hotel room. You also shouldn’t have a reed diffuser because if it spills, it can damage whatever it spills on.

Electric Wax Warmers

A great alternative to candles is an electric wax warmer. There are many different designs so you’re able to choose the one you like best. You can also get wax melts in your favorite fragrances as many major candle brands sell the same fragrances in wax melt form. This will give your hotel room the relaxing or romantic scent you’re looking for.

A wax warmer can also bring you the ambiance a candle can bring too. Electric wax warmers are powered by lightbulbs and, depending on the style warmer you choose, you will get a soft glow to create ambiance in a dark or dim room. When you’re looking to create the perfect atmosphere in your hotel room, just plug in your wax warmer and place a few wax melts into the melting dish and you’re all set.

Wax warmers are perfect to be used in the bedroom or the bathroom, depending on where you want to use it. You can also coordinate the type of wax melt fragrance you use to fit the room you’re warming your wax in. For example, if you want to take a relaxing bath, you can use a floral fragrance to help accentuate the relaxing bath.

Another amazing thing about wax warmers is that if you can’t find the perfect fragrance for you, you can combine two or three different fragrances to make it perfectly coordinated to your desires. This feature isn’t available with candles because, while you can burn more than one at once, you won’t get that completely blended fragrance like you do with mixing melts in the wax warmer.

Read more about Best Electric Wax Warmers.

Electric Essential Oil Diffuser

Another way you can bring your desired fragrance to your hotel room is through an essential oil diffuser. While you won’t have the same fragrance options as you do with candles, you’ll have the opportunity to use oils that are specifically targeted to your desired atmosphere. For example, if you want to make the room feel relaxing, you can diffuse vanilla essential oil. The oils you choose will bring a specific type of feeling into the room.

If the model of essential oil diffuser you buy doesn’t give off any light to add to the atmosphere, you can always buy battery operated tealight candles to give you the ambiance you’re missing. This applies to wax warmers too. If it doesn’t give off a light, electric tea light candles are the way to go. Just place these around the room like you would with normal tealight candles and let the essential oil diffuser do the fragrance work.

You can also customize your essential oils to your desired fragrance and use, too. All you need to do is mix two or three different oils together to get your desired affect. If you want to create a calm, soothing environment, try mixing together lavender and rose essential oils. This will give you a delicate fragrance but will definitely make the room feel soothing.

If you have an electric wax warmer and don’t want to buy an essential oil diffuser, you can always use your wax warmer as an oil diffuser. You plug the warmer into the outlet just like you would if you were warming wax melts.

Instead of using wax melts, though, add a little bit of water to the melting dish and stir in a few drops of your choice of essential oil. With this method, though, you need to keep an eye on your wax warmer because, unlike wax melts, the water and oil will evaporate as it warms.

Read more about Best Nebulizer Essential Oil Diffusers and Best Ultrasonic Diffusers.

Final Thoughts

While burning a candle may seem like a relaxing or romantic thing to do in a hotel room, you won’t find it to be that way if the smoke detector goes off or if you are met with a large fine from damaging part of the room. These are definitely unwanted by you and unwanted by the hotel staff. This is why they don’t allow you to burn candles in the room.

Instead of burning candles, it’s a better idea to bring an electric form of fragrance. Whether you choose an essential oil diffuser or a wax warmer, your room will smell amazing without you having to worry about a fine or evacuation, or both.

You’ll also get a lovely ambiance from these products if you choose one that gives off light. If you don’t have a product that gives off light, all you need to do is purchase some battery operated candles and you’ll be set for the entirety of your stay.

Grace Young

I love candles! I have personally tried over 100 brands of candles. The total burn time of these candles is over 5000 hours. I also talk about essential oil diffusers and reed diffusers. Essential oil diffusers and diffusers are also an important part of the scent in my home.

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