I Have ₹50,000 and Want to Launch Five Candle Fragrances — How Do I Calculate How Many Finished Candles My Initial Raw Materials Can Produce?

The calculation: one division per line, then take the smallest

To find how many finished candles a set of raw materials can produce, divide each line by what one candle needs from it, round each answer down, and take the smallest. Every word in that sentence matters. Each line means every fragrance separately, not all oil added together. What one candle needs means the wax in the candle, not the candle's weight, plus pour loss. Round down because a part-candle does not sell. And the smallest because the shortest line stops production for everything else.

The jar in this example is the Yankee Glass Jar 130 ml with clear cap. CSI does not publish its fill weight; 130 ml is a volume, and with a labelled approximation of about 0.86–0.90 g of solid wax per ml the brim would hold roughly 112–117 g. This page uses an illustrative 100 g candle, filled below the brim — weigh one test pour and replace 100 g with your number before you buy. At 100 g and a working 8%, each candle is 8 g of oil and 92 g of wax; Luxury Soy Wax Chunks' page states a 13% maximum, so 8% sits well inside it.

Run it on a typical first-draft order

Here is an order many makers would place for five fragrances: a 10 kg bag of wax, 500 g of each oil, 200 jars, 200 wicks and enough stickers. It feels generous — and it costs only ₹30,794.00, so it seems to leave plenty of the ₹50,000 spare. Run the formula on it.

The draft makes 105 candles, not 200 and not 300. The wax binds: 10 kg is 94.76 g a candle away from 105. Each oil could scent 60 candles, so at 105 candles shared across five scents roughly 327 g of every 500 g bottle sits idle, and 95 jars wait for wax. That is the barrel on the left of the diagram: one short stave, several tall ones, and the water line at the short one. Fixing it would take about 3 × 5 kg + 3 × 1 kg + 1 × 500 g more wax (₹11,081.00) — after which the jars would bind at 200.

The balanced ₹50,000 order for five fragrances

The balanced order starts from the answer: 50 candles per scent, 250 in all, two test candles per scent included. Every line is then bought to that count with pour loss and, for glass, a 2% breakage allowance (an example rate; use your own). The five oils are this page's example — Gardenia, Raat Ki Rani (Night-Blooming Jasmine), Mango Coconut, Lemongrass and Lime, Cinnamon Vanilla — chosen to show a spread of prices; the method is identical for any five you choose. Every price is a listed, in-stock CSI pack and the lines close exactly on ₹50,000.

Two rounding choices are worth seeing. The wax is 4 × 5 kg + 4 × 1 kg at ₹14,376.00: two 10 kg bags plus four 1 kg would be ₹14,394.00, because Chunks' 10 kg bag is ₹599.90 a kilo against ₹599.00 for the 5 kg; and 48 × 500 g would be ₹14,352.00 — a few rupees cheaper per kilo but a lot of bags. Mango Coconut is bought as one 500 g bottle because its 500 g is 20.7% cheaper per gram than its 100 g — one of the few CSI oils where the bigger bottle genuinely saves money at this volume.

The finished-candle count, line by line

The answer to the title, for this order: 250 finished candles, 240 of them saleable — 48 of each scent after its two test candles. Four scents bind at exactly 50; Mango Coconut's 500 g bottle could scent 60, the wax would stretch to 253 and the jars to 255 — so if you poured three extra Mango Coconut candles, the wax would be the line that stopped you. That small cushion above the water line on every stave is what a well-bought inventory looks like: enough to absorb a spilt jug or a cracked jar, not enough to tie up money. Per candle, the material cost runs from ₹142.42 to ₹167.19 depending on the scent, before labour, packaging, freight and GST.

Test before the production pour

Ten of the 250 candles are tests: each scent on an Eco Thin C1 and on an Eco Thick C2. Only the production wick waits for them; everything else is shared and bought now. CSI publishes no wick-per-diameter chart, and the Yankee jar's internal diameter is not published either.

A wick passes when it is no worse than a candle you trust on every safety line and within the jar supplier's guidance and the candle fire-safety standard you work to; CSI publishes no numeric limits, and a hotter jar never buys more throw. The burn-test-samples post sizes the test allowance for a 100-candle run.

The priced shopping list

Related budget questions

The ₹10,000 hub applies the same scarcest-component rule to a first budget. ₹50,000: wax and jars or more fragrances shows that width barely changes the count when buying is balanced. 25 each of four scents and a four-fragrance corporate order run the per-scent oil maths from a fixed order, and already owning the oils runs this calculation backwards — from the oil you have to the wax and jars you need.

Frequently asked questions