I Need 100 Saleable Candles — Should I Actually Purchase Enough Materials for 105 or 110 Pieces to Cover Testing, Breakage and Rejects?

Why 105 versus 110 is the wrong question, and what to ask instead

"Buy for 105" or "buy for 110" treats the buffer as one percentage laid over everything. But the things it has to cover behave differently. Test candles use a whole candle's worth of every material. Rejects — a sunken top, a crooked wick, a wet spot on the glass — also use a whole candle of every material, but only as a share of production. Pour loss is wax and oil left in the jug and on the thermometer: grams, not candles, and nothing to do with jars or wicks. Breakage is glass only. A single flat number is too generous on some lines and too thin on others.

The better question is: for each material, what does the buffer have to cover? This series answers it with one fixed order of allowances — tests as whole candles, then rejects as a division on the production candles, then pour loss on wax and oil, then breakage on glass, and only then rounding to real packs. The figures here — 4 test candles, 3% rejects, 5% pour loss, 2% breakage and 4 spare wicks — are labelled working assumptions for a maker without records yet. The example candle is 200 g at 8% in Natural Soy Pearl Wax with Fresh Strawberries in a White Matte Glass Jar.

What a flat 105 and a flat 110 actually cover

Now price the two flat plans the way most people mean them: materials for 105 (or 110) complete candles — wax, oil, jar, wick and sticker each — rounded to real CSI packs, with no separate pour-loss line. Then ask how many candles each material really covers once 5% of the wax and oil stays in the jug. The built-up stack is in the last column for comparison; the target is 108 candles poured (4 tests + 104 production).

Read the coverage columns against the target. A flat 105 looks safe on paper, but its wax only pours 103.5 candles once pour loss is taken out — fewer than the 108 this order needs — its oil pours 101.2, and it buys 105 jars against a need of 111. A flat 110 is closer: its wax pours 108.7 candles, which is enough, but its oil pours only 107.1, it is 1 jar short once 2% breakage is allowed, and 2 wicks short of the spares. The built-up stack covers every line and costs ₹625.40 more than flat 110 and ₹1,807.00 more than flat 105.

Your own records decide between 105 and 110

The candle part of the buffer is tests plus rejects. The grid below shows how many candles you must pour for 100 saleable ones at different combinations. Pour loss, breakage and spare wicks are separate and are not in this grid. Find your own test-candle count and reject rate — from your production records if you have them, or the labelled assumptions if you do not.

The cells marked ✓105 are where a 105-candle buffer covers tests and rejects. Plain cells sit between 105 and 110; bold cells need more than 110. A maker who pours no test candles and runs at 2–3% rejects really can plan on about 105 candles' worth — plus pour loss. A maker on a first run, with 4 test candles and an honest 5% reject rate, needs 110 candles poured before any pour loss: 110 exactly. At 8% or 10% rejects, even 110 is short — and the right response is to fix the rejects, not to buy more glass.

What the extra buffer costs, and what running short costs

The money side cuts both ways. Buying the built-up stack instead of a flat 105 costs ₹1,807.00 more on this order. In exchange, every line covers its target. If the flat 105 runs short — say your first run needs 4 test candles and sees 5% rejects, so 110 candles must be poured while its wax covers only 103 — the cost is not the materials — it is the candles you cannot deliver, a second small order, and the risk that a re-order arrives from a different oil or wax lot. One candle's materials at production rates cost about ₹211.50 (wax, oil, wick and jar, excluding labour and packaging); 7 missing candles is ₹1,480.52 of materials but 7 unfilled orders.

Three pack quirks are doing quiet work in that table. Wax: Natural Soy Pearl Wax is ₹450.00 a kilo at 1 kg and ₹424.80 from 5 kg — the only CSI soy wax with a real bulk step — so the 10 kg bags are the cheapest kilos and the flat 110 and the stack land on the same 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 1 kg. Wicks: Eco Thin C1 is ₹5.90 a wick at every pack, and with the 10-pack out of stock, 110 wicks are bought as 1 × 50-pack + 3 × 20-pack for ₹649.00 — the same as for 105. Jars: White Matte is sold in packs of 5 and 10 at ₹70.80 a jar, so the jar line moves in steps of five.

Where the leftover goes if every candle comes out right

If the run goes perfectly — no rejects, no breakage, the 4 test candles all used — the built-up stack leaves materials behind. That is the point of a buffer, but it is worth knowing which leftovers are flexible and which are not before you decide its size.

The oil is the one line where a generous buffer is a real cost, because a leftover 200 g of one fragrance only becomes saleable candles if you make that scent again. That is why the stack applies pour loss to oil as a percentage instead of rounding the oil buffer up to the next candle count. The minimum-leftover post shows how to pick bottle sizes that keep the oil remainder small without under-buying.

The CSI products in this order

Related 100-candle shopping lists

This page owns the size of the buffer. Exact or extra for 100 jasmine candles asks the same question for one scent at 180 g; burn-test samples owns the test-candle count; 100 coffee candles with a production buffer is a full worked list; and the 100-candle template carries the allowance stack as copyable lines. At larger scale, 1,000 saleable candles and 2% jar breakage on 1,000 run the same stack.

Frequently asked questions