How to Maintain Raw Material Batch Records for Candle Production
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What if the pack does not carry a manufacturer's lot number? Then you assign your own, which is the honest normal case for a small maker. Write a sequential code on the pack in permanent marker before it is opened —
W-01, O-A, K-01 — and record it in the register against the invoice number. Your own code is enough to bound a recall, because it is the link between the pack, the invoice and the batch sheets that used it.How big should a retained sample be? Enough to make a comparison candle, not enough to matter. 50 g of wax and 5 g of each oil is sufficient for a side-by-side melt and smell test. At CSI prices a wax retain costs about ₹54.87 including a wax melt container and an oil retain about ₹45.93 including a 6 ml attar bottle.
Does a lot always cover a whole batch? No, and that is the detail most systems miss. A 500 g oil pack at a 12 g dose covers 41 candles, so across the 66 candles from one wax pack the oil changes part-way through the second pour. That batch sheet needs two oil lot lines. Buying the 1 kg pack instead covers 83 candles and removes the mid-batch boundary entirely.
Why a batch sheet alone cannot answer a material question
A pour record tells you the temperatures, the weights and the dates of one batch. It is complete and useful and it still cannot answer the question a material problem asks, which is: was this pack different? To answer that you need to know which pack was in the pitcher, when it arrived, what else was made from it, and whether any of it survives in a form you can compare.
Consider the ordinary case. Ten pours in a row come out smooth, the eleventh frosts badly, and you have followed the same numbers throughout. If your records stop at the pour, the only available conclusions are that you did something wrong or that the weather changed. If your records reach back to the pack, you can see that a new wax lot was opened two days before that pour — which does not prove anything on its own, but it turns an open-ended worry into one testable question.
The second reason is bounding. A pour record bounds a problem to one pour. A material record bounds it to one pack, which is usually several pours, but it also tells you the opposite and more useful thing: which pours are definitely clear because they used a different pack. Recalls and reassurances both need that boundary.
The goods-in register: eleven columns
One row per pack, not per delivery. A delivery of one wax pack, two oil packs, a wick pack, seven jar packs, two sticker sheets and a sticker roll is six rows if you group the identical jar packs, and there is no harm in it being thirteen. The register can be a ruled notebook or a shared spreadsheet; what matters is that it is filled on delivery day and never afterwards.
| Column | What goes in it | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Received on | The date the box was opened, not the date it was ordered | Your own calendar |
| Your lot code | The code you assign, written on the pack in marker before it is opened | You |
| Material | The product name exactly as it appears on the product page | The product page |
| Pack size and quantity | 10 kg × 1, 500 g × 2, 100 wicks × 1 | The order |
| Supplier | Who it came from, even if that is only ever one name | The order |
| Invoice number and date | The GST invoice reference, copied in full | The invoice |
| Price paid per pack | So a per-gram cost can be recalculated later | The invoice |
| Manufacturer marking | Any code, batch number or date printed on the pack — copied exactly, or left blank | The pack |
| Condition on arrival | Sealed, dented, leaking, warm, one jar cracked | Your eyes, that day |
| Retained sample taken | Yes or no, and where it sits on the shelf | You |
| Opened on / finished on | The two dates that define the lot's working life | Filled in later |
Three columns do most of the work. Your lot code is the index. Invoice number is what lets you reconstruct price and date years later without keeping the paper. Condition on arrival is the one that protects you commercially: a dent, a leak or a cracked jar written down and photographed on the day is a conversation with the supplier, while the same fault noticed three weeks later is indistinguishable from damage you caused.
The last column — opened on and finished on — is filled in later and is worth the small nuisance. Those two dates define the lot's working life, and every batch sheet dated between them should carry that lot code. It is also the quickest audit of your own system: if a sheet from inside the window names a different lot, one of the two records is wrong, and you would rather find that out on a quiet Tuesday than during a complaint. It is also how you learn how fast you actually consume a pack, which at ₹16,071.00 a delivery is a genuinely useful thing to know.
Assigning lot codes you control
Some packs arrive with a marking printed or stamped on them. Copy it into the register exactly, character for character, and do not try to interpret it. But do not depend on it either, because markings differ by material and by supplier and you need one scheme that works for everything on your shelf. So assign your own code as well, and make it the primary index.
Keep the scheme boring. A letter for the material family and a running number is enough: W-01, W-02 for wax packs in the order you open them; O-A, O-B for oil; K-01 for wicks; J-01 for a jar delivery. If you run several waxes, put the grade in: W464-03. Write it on the pack in permanent marker in letters big enough to read from across the room, because the whole point is that somebody reaching for the pack mid-pour can copy it onto a sheet without stopping.
The thing to internalise is that lot codes do not fit neatly around pours. The table below works it out for the standard delivery on this page. A 10 kg wax pack spans three pours; a 500 g oil pack spans one and a half; a 100-wick pack spans one and a half wax packs. Those windows overlap in a way that means most batch sheets carry one wax lot and one oil lot, but some carry two of something, and the sheet has to allow for it.
| Material | Pack | Candles per pack | Lots across 66 candles | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soy wax | CSI 464 10 kg · ₹5,074.00 | 66 candles at a 150 g fill | 1 lot across all 3 pours | A wax lot usually outlives a pour, so one code covers several sheets |
| Fragrance oil | British Rose 500 gm · ₹1,593.00 | 41 candles at 12 g each | 2 lots across 66 candles | The change lands mid-pour, inside batch B-02 — that sheet needs two oil lines |
| Fragrance oil | British Rose 1 kg · ₹3,068.00 | 83 candles at 12 g each | 1 lot across all 3 pours | The bigger pack removes the mid-batch boundary as well as costing less per gram |
| Wicks | Eco C1 100 wicks · ₹590.00 | 100 candles, 1 wick each | 1 lot across 66 candles | Wick lots turn over slowly; record the size as well as the lot |
| Jars | Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid · packs of 10 | 10 candles per pack, ₹6,608.00 for 7 packs | 1 delivery lot, 7 cartons | Glass is the one material where a visible difference between cartons is normal |
| Wick stickers | 40 per sheet · ₹100.00 | 40 candles per sheet | 2 sheets (₹200.00) across 66 | Low value, but adhesion failures do cluster by sheet |
There is a purchasing consequence hiding in that table. Two 500 g packs of British Rose cost ₹3,186.00; one 1 kg pack of the same oil is ₹3,068.00, which is ₹118.00 less and — more to the point here — one lot instead of two. Buying in the pack size that finishes at a pour boundary is a records decision as much as a price decision, and it is one of the few places where the cheaper option is also the tidier one.
Retained samples: the part almost nobody does
A register tells you which pack. A retain lets you go and look at it. The difference is the difference between a record and evidence, and it is the step that turns an argument about whether the wax changed into a test you can run on a Sunday afternoon.
Draw the sample at first opening, before any of the pack has been used, and before it has spent three weeks absorbing whatever the workshop smells of. Label the container with the lot code and the date in permanent marker — not on a paper label, which will fall off in an Indian monsoon — and put it on a shelf away from sunlight and heat.
| Material | Retain size | Container | Cost per lot | Keep for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soy wax | 50 g of flakes, straight from the pack | Square wax melt container, ₹29.50 each in a pack of 10 | ₹54.87 | Until the lot is finished, plus 12 months |
| Fragrance oil | 5 g in a sealed bottle, filled at first opening | 6 ml attar bottle, ₹30.00 each in a pack of 10 | ₹45.93 | Until the lot is finished, plus 12 months |
| Wicks | 3 wicks, taped to the register page | None needed | Effectively nil | Until the pack is finished |
| Dye | The bottle itself, once empty, labelled | None needed | Effectively nil | Six months after the lot finishes |
| Finished candle | One candle from the first pour on a new lot | The jar it was poured in | ₹217.97 | 12 months, unburned, out of sunlight |
Put the annual cost together on an assumption — say 12 wax lots and 24 oil lots a year, which is an assumption and not measured data — and retains come to ₹1,760.76 a year. Against 12 wax packs' worth of output, which is 792 candles and ₹1,72,630.66 of CSI materials, that is about 1%. It is the cheapest insurance in a candle business and the first thing dropped, because the benefit is invisible until the week it is not.
One retain is worth more than all the others: a finished candle from the first pour on each new lot, kept unburned for a year at a materials cost of ₹217.97. When a customer says this year's candle is not like last year's, that is the only comparison that settles it — same scent, same size, different lot, both in your hand. Keep it out of sunlight, and note in the register where it is.
The delivery-day routine, in twelve minutes
Everything in this page happens on one day per delivery, and it happens before anything is put away. The routine below is written for a delivery of six or so lines and takes roughly twelve minutes in total — an estimate you should replace with your own timing after three deliveries.
| Check | Time | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Photograph the unopened packs beside the invoice | Two minutes | Proves condition on arrival and ties the pack to the paperwork in one image |
| Write your lot code on every pack in marker | Two minutes | The one step that cannot be done later, because once a pack is open it looks like every other pack |
| Copy any marking printed on the pack into the register | One minute | If it is there, it is free traceability; if it is not, your own code carries the whole load |
| Draw 50 g of wax and 5 g of each oil into retain containers | Five minutes | The sample is only representative if it is taken before the pack is used |
| File the invoice by invoice number, not by date | One minute | You will be searching from a lot code, and the register links code to invoice number |
| Note condition honestly, including dents and cracks | One minute | A dented tin or a cracked jar noted on day one is a supplier conversation; noticed in week three it is your problem |
Using the records when something goes wrong
The test of the whole system is how fast a vague complaint becomes a specific comparison. Four ordinary cases, and what the register and the retains do with each of them.
| What happens | What the register shows | What you do next |
|---|---|---|
| A customer says the scent is weaker than the candle they bought in March | Register shows the March candles used oil lot O-A and today's use O-D | Open both retains and smell them side by side. If they match, the change is in your process, not the oil |
| A whole pour frosts badly when the previous ten did not | Register shows a new wax lot opened two days before that pour | The retain from the new lot and the retain from the old one, melted side by side in the same jars, answer it in an afternoon |
| Three jars crack on first burn | Register shows all three came from the same carton of a seven-carton delivery | Check the remaining jars from that carton before shipping any of them, and photograph them against the delivery-day photo |
| A wick that worked last quarter tunnels now | Register shows the wick pack changed and the size line was left blank | The blank line is the finding. Nothing can be concluded, which is itself the argument for the register |
The fourth row is the honest one and the reason to fill in every column even when it feels pointless. A blank field does not just fail to help; it actively prevents a conclusion, and you will not know which field mattered until the day it is blank. The register is cheap precisely because you fill it in when nothing is wrong.
There is a limit worth stating plainly. Retains let you compare your own samples to each other. They do not give you an analysis of a material, and CSI does not publish batch-level certificates on the store, so if you need MSDS or IFRA documentation for your file, ask for it on WhatsApp +91 7397976926 and keep the document alongside the register. Anything beyond that — an independent test of a specific pack — is a laboratory question, not a supplier question.
Invoices, GST and the documents that belong beside the register
The register is an index; the paperwork is what it indexes. Keep four things together and the file answers most questions without anybody thinking hard. The GST invoice, filed by invoice number. The delivery-day photograph, named with the same number. Any MSDS or IFRA documentation you have requested for the materials on that invoice. And the register page itself, which is the only document that links them to production.
Prices on the CSI store are stated as inclusive of tax on the Luxury Soy Wax Chunks page, and GST invoicing is available, so your invoice is a real document to file rather than a screenshot of a cart. What you do with it in your own books, and what records your own tax position requires you to keep and for how long, is a question for your accountant — this page does not give tax or compliance advice and no figure here should be read as one.
A word on where these documents live. A WhatsApp thread is where most small Indian brands keep invoices, and it works right up to the day the phone changes or the chat is cleared. Pull them into a folder on a computer or a cloud drive named by invoice number, the same evening the delivery arrives. The photograph and the invoice in the same folder, named the same way, is the whole filing system.
What the whole system costs, and what it is worth
In CSI materials the answer is small and specific: ₹54.87 per wax lot and ₹45.93 per oil lot for retains, which on an assumption of 12 wax lots and 24 oil lots a year comes to ₹1,760.76. Against ₹1,72,630.66 of materials for 792 candles that is about 1% — and the containers are reusable once a lot is retired, so the true running cost is lower than that.
In things CSI does not sell, the answer is honestly unknown and should stay that way on this page. A notebook or a spreadsheet, a marker pen, shelf space for a row of small containers, and about twelve minutes per delivery of your own time. None of those is a CSI product, none is published anywhere, and putting a plausible-looking number against them would be inventing data. Put them in your own costing as blank rows and fill them from your own receipts and your own stopwatch.
The value is where honesty is hardest, because it is a probability rather than a figure. Most lots are fine and their retains are thrown away unopened after a year. The system pays on the few that are not, and the payment is the difference between replacing one lot's worth of candles — ₹14,385.89 of material at this fill size — and carrying doubt across everything you made in a year, ₹1,72,630.66. Nobody can tell you the odds. What can be said is that the cost of being ready is about 1% of materials, which is low enough that the calculation does not need to be close.
Start small and start now. Before your next delivery, rule eleven columns in a notebook and buy a pack of wax melt containers and a pack of attar bottles. On delivery day, photograph, code, register, retain. You will have a usable material history within three months and a genuinely valuable one within a year, and neither requires you to buy anything you were not already buying. For bulk pricing beyond the listed pack ladder, GST invoicing, or MSDS and IFRA documentation to file alongside the register, message WhatsApp +91 7397976926.
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials — wax, fragrance oils, wicks, vessels, dyes and tools — and does not make or sell finished candles. The honest thing this page has to say against its own interest is that the discipline it describes exists partly to hold suppliers, including this one, to account: a retained sample is how a candle maker finds out whether a material changed, and a register is how a maker knows which supplier and which invoice a problem belongs to. We would rather you could answer that question than not.
Every price on this page comes from live CSI stock in September 2026, prices are stated as inclusive of tax on the Luxury Soy Wax Chunks page, and the linked product pages are authoritative. The 60-month shelf life quoted for cool, dry storage is stated on the Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 and Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 pages. Batch-level certificates of analysis are not published on the store; MSDS and IFRA documentation is available on request via WhatsApp. The lot codes, batch codes, the batch size of 22 and the figures of 12 wax lots and 24 oil lots a year are illustrative assumptions, not measured data, and the twelve-minute delivery routine is an estimate for you to replace with your own timing.
For bulk pricing beyond the listed pack ladder, GST invoicing, or MSDS and IFRA documentation to keep alongside your goods-in register, message WhatsApp +91 7397976926. If you are setting a register up for the first time and want a second opinion on the columns, send a photograph of one page and we will tell you what we would add.
Frequently asked questions
- How to Verify Wax Quality Before You Buy in India
- Where Do Professional Candle Brands Buy Their Raw Materials?
- Best Place to Source Candle Making Supplies for a Business
- Can I Buy All My Candle Making Materials from One Supplier?
- How Much Fragrance Oil Does a Candle Business Need?
- Top 10 Candle Making Items You Must Have (Beginner to Business Guide)
- How to Make Professional Soy Candles
- Best Candle Making Material Supplier in India
Customer reviews: The six reviews at the top of this page are genuine, published Judge.me reviews left by CSI customers on their product pages. Names, star ratings, dates and products are as recorded by Judge.me. One longer review is shortened with an ellipsis; wording is otherwise unedited. Two are not recorded as a verified purchase — shown as recorded. Not recorded by Judge.me as a verified purchase, so shown without a verified-buyer badge: LJ, Lalitha Jagan. No location is shown against any review because Judge.me does not store one.
Figures verified September 2026 (CSI live pricing). Prices (live CSI stock, September 2026, taxes included): Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 10 kg ₹5,074.00 (₹507.40/kg), 5 kg ₹2,537.00; British Rose Fragrance Oil 500 gm ₹1,593.00 (₹3.19/g) and 1 kg ₹3,068.00 (₹3.07/g); Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) 100 wicks ₹590.00 (₹5.90 each); Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid 150 gram pack of 10 ₹944.00 (₹94.40 each); Candle Wick Stickers 40 for ₹100.00 (₹2.50 each); Candle Care Stickers Roll 500 for ₹413.00 (₹0.83 each); Wax Melts Containers Empty Square pack of 10 ₹295.00 (₹29.50 each); Attar Bottles 6 ml pack of 10 ₹300.00 (₹30.00 each); Isopropyl Alcohol Spray 150 ML ₹383.00. Worked scenario: a 150 g wax fill with an 8% fragrance load of wax weight (12 g of oil per candle), one wick, one wick sticker and one coded care sticker per candle, giving ₹217.97 of CSI materials per candle; one 10 kg wax pack yields 66 candles with about 100 g left over, a 500 g oil pack covers 41 candles and a 1 kg oil pack 83. Illustrative assumptions, not measured data: pours of 22 candles, the lot codes and batch codes used throughout, 12 wax lots and 24 oil lots a year, the twelve-minute delivery routine, and the 50 g wax / 5 g oil retain sizes. Shelf life of 60 months in cool, dry storage away from sunlight and moisture is stated on the Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 and Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 pages; prices inclusive of tax is stated on the Luxury Soy Wax Chunks page. Batch-level certificates of analysis are not published on the store; MSDS and IFRA documentation is available on request via WhatsApp. Costs CSI does not sell — notebooks, printing, marker pens, shelving, outer packaging, labels, courier, electricity, rent and labour — carry no figure on this page and are left as the reader's own inputs. Prices and availability change — the linked product pages are always authoritative.