I do both, I have a couple of candles that I use my candle warmer for and several that I burn. I started using the candle warmer so I wouldn't have an open flame. Last year when I had company over and we were sitting on the porch, my smoke alarm went off, came inside and I had a small candle fire. I had a candle topper with a hole for the flame on my candle which got so hot that it caught fire. I was very lucky that everything was ok with no damage except for cleaning the smuck from the smoke. Thank goodness for smoke detectors or we could of had a full house fire, so I'll use my warmers more than the open flame.