Infrared emits infrared light to warm some surfaces.. it feels nice on skin, but doesn’t effectively heat a space.

The oil filled heater slowly warms a large mass of oil, without overloading an electrical circuit as electric coil fan heaters can. Once the oil is warmed sufficiently, the heater just maintains the temperature and the oil continuously transfers warmth to the air. The oil never gets hot enough to catch or start a fire, but is definitely hot to the touch.

Combining a small fan to circulate air with an oil filled heater is probably the safest combination. Both for your electrical system and for reducing risk of fire.

Hope that makes sense. Forced fan heaters cause electrical failures every year, which can be very expensive to fix. They also cause many fires!