I Use One Wick Size Across Eight Fragrances — If I Change Wick Supplier, Should I Test All Eight Fragrances Again?

The short version: check all eight, fully retest only some

When you run one wick size across eight fragrances, that wick was approved eight times — once in each fragrance system — even if it felt like one decision. A new supplier's wick, however similar it looks, has been approved zero times. So the question is not whether to check all eight; you should. It is how much evidence each one needs. The answer comes from a principle used in any sensible test plan: concentrate the heavy testing where the risk is, and use lighter checks to confirm the rest behave like the heavy cases. This is called bracketing. It works only if you know where the risk is — and for a range you have been making for a while, you do.

This page assumes the scenario most useful to explain honestly: you are moving from your current wick supplier to CSI's Eco Candle Wicks. We are the new supplier in this story, and the page still tells you to retest. CSI publishes no burn data, construction details or wick-size-per-diameter charts for its wicks, and does not claim that Eco Thick C2 is equivalent to any other brand's wick of any size. The "equivalent size" post explains why that word should never end a conversation about wicks.

Choosing the bracket from your own records

The bracket is only as good as the ranking behind it. Do not rank by guesswork or by the fragrance's name. Rank by what your approved wick actually did in each fragrance when you approved it — the burn logs, photographs and notes you kept. If you kept none, skip to the no-records route. The template below is what to pull out of those records. The numbers are yours to fill in; CSI has no burn data for any of these oils and the table deliberately contains none.

Pick three for the bracket. The first is the fragrance that ran hottest on the old wick — tallest flame, most mushrooming, deepest pool. If the new wick is going to be too much for any fragrance, it will be this one. The second is the fragrance that ran coolest — slowest to full pool, smallest flame. If the new wick is going to be too little, it will be this one. The third is whichever fragrance gave you trouble for any other reason: complaints, a borderline approval, a batch you had to re-pour. The other five then have to sit between the extremes, and the confirm test checks that they do.

Plan A against Plan B, in candles, rupees and days

Plan A repeats everything: every fragrance gets three candles on the new wick and one control on your old wick, burned to the end of usable wax. That is 32 candles. Plan B brackets: the three chosen fragrances get exactly that, and the other five get one new-wick candle and one control each, burned to about half-weight. That is 22 candles. Both plans put every fragrance beside a control. Three candles per variant in a full-life arm is the series' labelled working minimum.

The rupee saving is real but modest — ₹2,913.12. The bigger saving is burn capacity. A full life is slow: with the example figures, 38 hours per candle, so Plan A ties up your burn table for about 38 days and Plan B for about 20. If you are changing supplier because your old wick is out of stock and Diwali is on 8 November 2026, those days are the difference between qualifying the range in time and not. Replace the example consumption with your own measured grams per hour — weigh a candle before and after a burn and divide by the hours — and the day count becomes yours.

Plan B has one condition that Plan A does not. If any of the five confirm fragrances disagrees with its control — a taller flame, more mushrooming, a slower pool, a warmer jar — it is immediately promoted to a full-life arm, with three new-wick candles and a control. The bracket told you it should behave like the others; it didn't, so it gets tested on its own. That is how bracketing stays honest.

Running Plan B

Keep the plan honest in three ways. Change only the wick: if the new supplier's wick arrives with a different tab, the end-of-life lines need the extra attention described in the tab-change post. Do not change a load or an oil at the same time — the one-variable post explains why a mixed change makes the whole bracket unreadable. And if an order is already waiting, the emergency 1,000-candle post shows how to compress the schedule without dropping the full life.

The confirm scoring sheet

CSI publishes no numeric flame-height or jar-temperature limit, so "same as control" is the pass line, alongside your jar supplier's guidance and the fire-safety standard you work to. The wick master checklist has the full-life sheet used by the bracket fragrances and the KEEP / CONFIRM / REPEAT / NEW verdicts for every kind of wick change.

If you have no records: screen first, then bracket

Plenty of small makers approved their wick by burning a few candles and liking them, and kept nothing on paper. That is not a moral failing, but it removes the basis for a bracket. In that case, spend the first round on a quick screen of all eight — one new-wick candle and one control each, to half-weight — and let the screen produce the ranking your records would have. Then run the full lives on the three fragrances that the screen marks as the extremes. You pay for the screen, but you get a record you will use again at the next supplier change.

If the screen shows one type behaving very differently from the rest — for example, only the sweet fragrances mushrooming on the new wick — the question has become the one in the lavender-and-vanilla post, and the new wick may need to be approved for part of the range only.

The priced kits

All sizes are listed and in stock on the pull dates, with a 5% pour-loss allowance (working assumption). The new wick is Eco Candle Wicks Thick C2, sold in 10, 20, 100 and 1,000 packs at ₹9.44 each; the controls use your old supplier's wick from your own stock, so they cost nothing here. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks are rated up to 13% fragrance load by the wax maker, so 8% is inside the stated maximum. The White Matte Glass Jar's fill weight is not published — weigh a test pour to confirm 200 g.

Release, record and the next change

The same logic scales up. For twenty fragrances and a wax change rather than a wick change, the 20-fragrance wax post applies bracketing to a bigger range, and the 20-SKU post turns it into a standing rule for which changes need a quick confirmation and which a complete revalidation. If the new wick is also cheaper, the ₹2-per-candle post works out whether the saving pays for this testing.

Frequently asked questions