I Want to Make 100 Sculptural Candles — How Do I Calculate Wax, Fragrance, Wick and Mould Capacity Before Placing My Raw-Material Order?

Two capacities, not one

The first is capacity in grams: how much finished candle one cavity holds. It decides how much wax and fragrance to buy. CSI does not publish it for any mould, so you measure it with water. The second is capacity in moulds: how many candles you can produce per day with the moulds you own. It decides how many moulds to buy, and it is the line a sculptural-candle plan most often leaves out — 100 candles from one mould of each shape is a month of pouring, not a weekend.

Jar-candle BOMs in the first part of this series do not have this problem. A jar is both the container and the product, so the jar count equals the candle count and the jars can all be filled on the same afternoon. A silicone mould is a tool you reuse: each one produces one candle per set-and-unmould cycle, and the cycle — not the wax — is usually what limits the run. That is why this page has two calculations running side by side, and why the order of operations matters: grams first, moulds second, packs last.

Capacity in grams: one water fill per shape

For each shape, seal the wick hole, fill the cavity with water to your pour line and weigh it. Multiply by a labelled factor of 0.86–0.90 — solid wax is lighter than water by volume, and the exact figure varies with the wax and how full you pour — to get the finished candle weight. This page uses 0.88. Then split at your working load: oil = candle × 8%, wax = the rest. Neither CSI pillar-capable wax in this comparison publishes a fragrance ceiling, so 8% is a working figure inside a 6–10% test range, not a spec.

One of the four shapes lets you sanity-check the water fill with geometry. The Pillar Candle Mould, Tall is listed as 11.2 × 6.3 cm. If those are the internal height and diameter (CSI does not say), a straight cylinder of that size holds π × 3.15² × 11.2 = 349.1 g of water — an upper bound, because the pour line sits below the rim. The other three are irregular shapes and their water fills here are illustrative placeholders. Replace all four with your own weighed figures.

The allowance stack, shape by shape

Each shape gets its own row because each one has its own test candles and its own per-candle grams. The series order is fixed: tests as whole candles first, then rejects as a division, then pour loss on wax and oil, and only then rounding to packs. Two test candles per shape — one in each scent — let you check unmoulding, wick and scent on every shape before production. The reject allowance is 8%, a labelled example: sculptural shapes have narrow necks and fine detail that can tear on unmoulding, so most makers allow more than for jars. Glass breakage does not apply: there is no glass.

So the answer to the title's wax question, for this mix, is 30,699.1 g of wax and 2,669.5 g of fragrance. The net requirement — 100 perfect candles and nothing else — is only 25,156.7 g of wax and 2,187.5 g of oil; the tests, rejects and loss add 5,542.4 g of wax. That gap is not waste you can design away on a first run of irregular shapes. It is the cost of finding out what each mould really does.

Capacity in moulds: how many of each to buy

A pillar or sculptural candle in a silicone mould is commonly left to set fully before unmoulding — many makers pour in the afternoon and unmould the next day. That gives a working assumption of one pour per mould per working day. It is labelled, not a spec: a small shape in a cool room may cycle faster, a large one in a warm workshop slower, and CSI publishes no set times. Use your own cycle once you have timed the test candles. With that assumption, moulds needed per shape = pours for that shape ÷ working days in your window, rounded up.

The table makes the trade-off visible. One of each shape costs ₹4,187.82 but takes 35 working days, because the bubble and pillar shapes each need 35 pours. A 10-day window needs 14 moulds for ₹15,630.28; a 5-day window needs 24 for ₹27,072.74. Moulds are the one line in a sculptural BOM that buys speed rather than candles, so decide the delivery date first and let it set the mould count. The bubble mould is the expensive line at ₹2,124.00 each; if the window is tight, it is the shape where a longer window saves the most money.

Which wax: Soy Pillar Wax or paraffin pellets, priced both ways

Two CSI waxes can be candidates for free-standing shapes: Soy Pillar Wax (₹600.00 a kilo at every size, 500 g to 10 kg) and Fully Refined Paraffin Wax Pellets (₹177.00 for 500 g, ₹354.00 for 1 kg). Neither page publishes a melt point, pour temperature or fragrance ceiling, and CSI publishes no hardness, release or burn data for either. We will not tell you which unmoulds better or throws better; the two test candles per shape will. What we can show is the arithmetic, because it is large.

Paraffin pellets are ₹7,626.00 cheaper for this run. Two practical notes come with that number. CSI lists paraffin pellets only up to 1 kg, so this order is 31 bags — ask on WhatsApp whether a larger pack can be quoted, since none is listed and no discount figure is published. And the per-candle difference is smaller than the run total suggests, because the oil and wick do not change:

Fragrance: two scents, and one price quirk worth knowing

Half the candles of every shape go into each scent, so each oil needs 1,334.7 g. The scents in this example are Palo Santo and Saffron Cedarwood. Palo Santo is priced almost flat: ₹6.02 a gram at 50 g, 100 g, 500 g and 1 kg alike. Saffron Cedarwood is the opposite — and backwards. Its 500 g bottle is ₹2,584.20 (₹5.17 a gram) while its 1 kg is ₹6,867.60 (₹6.87 a gram). Two 500 g bottles cost ₹1,699.20 less than one kilo. Always compute; never assume the bigger bottle is the cheaper rate.

Notice that the two oils are rounded separately, never added together and then split: you cannot pour Palo Santo leftovers into a Saffron Cedarwood candle. That is the general rule for every multi-scent BOM in this cluster — five scents on shared wax and jars applies it to a jar collection, and the 15-SKU post shows what happens when it is applied per SKU instead of per scent.

Wick: length, not count

Moulded candles are wicked with lengths cut from a roll, threaded through the pinhole and held at the open base. The quantity is therefore a total length: for each shape, (pours + 1 spare) × (mould height + 5 cm hold-over). The Tall pillar uses its listed 11.2 cm; the other heights are illustrative. For this mix that is 16.48 m of wick against 61 m on one Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82) — 1 roll. Wick size for a given shape is not published; the two test candles per shape are where you find out whether the braid is right for each diameter, and a second candidate such as Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made (₹120.00 for 10) is worth having on the bench for the widest shape.

The priced order, and what waits for the tests

The full order below is the Soy Pillar Wax route with a 10-working-day window. The paraffin total is shown underneath. Shared tools — sealer, two packs of wick centering devices for the wider openings, scale, thermometer, jug and stirrers — are listed once; skip any you already own.

The split protects the two most expensive decisions. Extra moulds are ₹11,442.46 that should wait until you know your real cycle time, and the production wax should wait until the two-wax test has picked one: if you pour the test candles in both waxes, add paraffin pellets for the tests too — 2 × 1 kg at ₹708.00. Oil is the line where waiting costs a little: the test quantities come in small bottles, dearer per gram than the production packs. Buying oil before a client approves weighs that trade-off for a confirmed order.

Related product briefs in this cluster

If your moulded product is a single bubble candle rather than a run of shapes, the bubble-candle list covers the extras in more detail. If the same scents will also go into melts, combined fragrance purchasing and materials shared across candles and melts take over. For jar ranges, three sizes in one procurement plan and standardising ten SKUs; and for any new product at all, the complete BOM before buying. When the run is confirmed and recurring, one consolidated monthly order shows how moulds sit beside consumables.

Frequently asked questions