How Much Fragrance Oil Does a Candle Business Need for 100 Candles?

The one-line rule for 100 candles

Fragrance load is a percentage of the finished candle: a 200g candle at 8% is 16 g of oil and 184 g of wax. To get the oil for one candle you multiply the candle weight by the load and divide by 100. To get the oil for 100 candles you multiply that by 100 — and the two hundreds cancel. What is left is the shortcut:

Grams of oil for 100 candles = candle weight in grams × the load percentage number. A 200g candle at 8% → 200 × 8 = 1,600 g. A 150g candle at 10% → 150 × 10 = 1,500 g. A 70g votive at 6% → 70 × 6 = 420 g. No decimals, no calculator, and it is exact rather than approximate.

The wax side is just as easy: subtract the oil from the total. One hundred 200g candles is 20 kg of finished candle, so at 8% that is 1.6 kg of oil and 18.4 kg of wax. Add a planning allowance of 3–5% on the wax for spills, sprue and top-ups — that is an allowance, not a specification — and buy the nearest pack combination above it. The wax side in full, wax by wax, is in how much wax you need for 100 candles, and the whole bill of materials including jars, wicks and tools is in raw materials required to make 100 candles. This page is the fragrance side only, in detail.

Oil for 100 candles, by size and load

The whole planning matrix in one table. Read down for your candle size, across for your load, and the cell is the grams of oil 100 candles will consume. The wax column is 100 candles' worth at the 8% column for comparison.

The bottle plan for one scent

Most CSI candle oils list at 15 g, 50 g, 100 g, 500 g and 1 kg, which means 1,600 g can be assembled several ways at noticeably different prices. Four steps to get it right, and one thing not to do.

Two things worth noticing. The spread from the cheapest oil to the dearest here is ₹3,829 across 100 candles — ₹38.29 a candle, which is a larger swing than any pack-size decision on this page. Choosing the scent is a bigger financial lever than choosing the bottle. And on Jasmine the cheapest exact route is three 500 g bottles plus a 100 g, not a kilo, because its 500 g pack is ₹3.922 a gram against ₹3.923 at 1 kg — a difference of ₹1 across 1,600 g, which tells you the ladder is effectively flat and the route should be chosen on convenience.

Splitting 100 candles across scents

This is where 100-candle plans go over budget, and it has nothing to do with how much oil the candles contain. The total is always 1,600 g. What changes is how cleanly 1,600 g divides into whole packs, and the smallest production pack on most oils is 100 g. The table uses Lavender throughout so the only variable is the scent count.

The shape of that table is the point. Going from one scent to eight raises the oil bill by ₹259 — about 3% — because 1,600 g divides exactly by 1, 2, 4 and 8. Going to five scents raises it by ₹2,419, nearly 29%, and leaves 400 g on the shelf, because 320 g is not a whole number of 100 g packs. Five is the awkward number at this batch size. If you want five scents in a 100-candle run, the cheap fixes are to make it four or eight, to split the run unevenly (see below), to pour 125 candles so each scent needs 400 g, or to accept the 400 g as stock for the next run.

Three oils, costed for 100 candles

Three points on the price ladder, each with every listed pack size and how many 200g candles at 8% that pack pours. The 15 g row shows ≈0 because one 200g candle at 8% needs 16 g — a trial is not even one candle's worth, which is exactly why trials are for smelling.

Your candle size is a weight you measure

Everything above multiplies a candle weight, so the plan is only as good as that weight. Two traps.

Millilitres are not grams. Most in-stock CSI jars state capacity in ml — the matte and frosted jars state "a fill weight of 200 ml" with dimensions of 8 cm by 7 cm — and wax is less dense than water, so a 200 ml jar does not hold 200 g of wax. Some jars do state grams: the Amber Shiny Glass Jar with Black Lid states a 120 gm capacity, the Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid states roughly 150 gm with a hot-pour limit of 85°C, and the Apothecary Glass Candle Jar states about 500–700 g across two sizes. Where the page gives millilitres, pour one jar to your fill line, weigh the wax and use that number.

Your fill line is a choice, not a capacity. Most makers leave 8–12 mm of headroom, so the wax weight is below the stated capacity. If your weighed fill is 185 g rather than 200 g, 100 candles at 8% need 1,480 g of oil, not 1,600 g — a 120 g difference, which on Lavender is about ₹629 of oil you did not have to buy (120 g at the ₹5.2381 a gram of the exact 1,600 g route). Weighing one jar once, properly, is worth more than any pack-route optimisation on this page.

Placing the order

The fragrance side of a 100-candle run, in the order you decide it: weighed fill, load, grams, scent count, packs. Below is the finished list for the commonest case — 100 × 200g candles at 8%, four scents, 400 g each — with the wax, wick and jar lines shown so the oil's share is visible.

A note on that jar line: it is a 120 gm-capacity jar priced per piece, included so the shape of the bill is visible. If you are genuinely pouring 200g candles you need a larger vessel and your glass cost rises, which lowers fragrance's share below 26.9%. Rescale the jar row to whatever you have weighed — and if you want the full bill of materials including tools and dyes, that is set out in raw materials required to make 100 candles. For 500 and 1,000-candle runs, where portfolio splitting and bottle rounding get interesting again, see 500 candles and 1,000 candles.

Frequently asked questions