I Want to Produce 1,000 Tealights for Diwali — How Do I Calculate Wax, Fragrance, Wick and Cup Quantities?
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How much fragrance oil? At 6% of a 12 g fill, 0.72 g per cup, or 720 g for 1,000. A 5% allowance brings it to 756 g, so one 1 kg pack covers the order.
Which wick does CSI sell for tealights? None dedicated. Eco C1, the thinnest in the range, is the first candidate to test; C2 is the comparison. Burn-test before ordering in bulk.
What does one tealight cost in materials? About ₹21.26 in the worked example with CSI 464, Sandalwood, a standard cup and an Eco C1, excluding packaging, labour, shipping and GST.
Start with one number CSI cannot give you: your fill weight
Every quantity on this page hangs off a single measurement: how many grams of finished wax one cup holds when it is filled to the level you actually want. CSI sells the empty aluminium cups, but it publishes no fill weight for them, and neither does it publish one for the Big Tealights cup. So the first purchase is small and the first job is weighing.
Buy the 10-pack of standard cups (₹94.40) and, if you are considering the larger format, the 10-pack of Big Tealights empty cups (₹118.00). Melt a little wax, pour five cups to your chosen line, let them set, and weigh each one with the cup tared off. Average the five. That average is your fill weight, and it beats any figure copied from the internet because it reflects your pour line, your wax and your cup.
For the worked example below, assume your five cups averaged 12 g. That is an illustration only. If your scale says 10 g or 14 g, replace 12 everywhere and the method still holds.
The 1,000-tealight calculation, step by step
This series calculates fragrance load as a percentage of the total candle weight. For a tealight, a moderate load is sensible because the melt pool is tiny and the wick is small; a suggested starting point to test is 6%. At 12 g per cup, 6% of 12 g is 0.72 g of oil, leaving 11.28 g of wax.
Notice how small the fragrance figure is. A thousand tealights at 6% need well under a kilogram of oil, which surprises makers who are used to 200 g jars. That is good news for the budget and a warning for the test: in such a small format, weak or volatile oils have very little margin to work with.
Converting the maths into a CSI order
For a festive tealight, an oil with a warm Indian character suits the occasion. Sandalwood is a reasonable first candidate: its product page lists a 203°C flashpoint, 0% vanillin and use up to 10% in soy. Its 50 g and 100 g packs were out of stock on the October pull, so test from the 15 g pack (₹93.22) and buy the 1 kg (₹5,026.80) once it passes.
| Material | Need | CSI pack choice | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard tealight cups | 1,000 + spares | 2 × 500 (₹3,009.00 each) + 1 × 100 | ₹6,018.00 + ₹649.00 = ₹6,667.00 |
| CSI 464 soy wax flakes | 11.84 kg | 1 × 10 kg + 2 × 1 kg | ₹5,074.00 + (2 × ₹507.40) = ₹6,088.80 |
| Sandalwood fragrance oil | 756 g | 1 × 1 kg | ₹5,026.80 |
| Eco C1 wicks (candidate to test) | 1,000 + spares | 1 × 1,000 + 1 × 100 | ₹5,900.00 + ₹590.00 = ₹6,490.00 |
A note on the cups. Ten packs of 100 would cost 10 × ₹649.00 = ₹6,490.00 for exactly 1,000 cups with no spares, while two packs of 500 plus one of 100 give you 1,100 cups for ₹6,667.00. The extra ₹177.00 buys a hundred spare cups, which is cheap insurance against dents and rejected pours.
A note on the wicks. CSI does not list a dedicated tealight wick. Eco C1 is the thinnest wick in the range and therefore the sensible first candidate, but its length and burn behaviour in a tealight cup are not published, so you may need to trim it and you must burn-test it. Do not order 1,100 of anything until a test batch has burned clean.
Cost per tealight
Using the same figures: wax 11.28 g × ₹0.5074 per g (₹5,074.00 ÷ 10,000 g) = ₹5.72; oil 0.72 g × ₹5.0268 per g (₹5,026.80 ÷ 1,000 g) = ₹3.62; cup ₹3,009.00 ÷ 500 = ₹6.02; Eco C1 wick ₹5.90. Total ₹5.72 + ₹3.62 + ₹6.02 + ₹5.90 = ₹21.26 per tealight, excluding packaging, labels, labour, shipping and GST. The wick and cup together cost more than the wax and oil, which is typical of small formats.
What to test before the bulk order
The production table assumes the Eco C1 burns well in your cup with your oil. That assumption is exactly what a test batch exists to prove. A suggested test set is cheap and fast:
| Item | Pack | Price | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard tealight cups | 50 | ₹330.40 | Enough for weighing plus three wick trials |
| CSI 464 soy wax | 1 kg | ₹507.40 | Covers about 88 cups at 11.28 g of wax each |
| Sandalwood oil | 15 g | ₹93.22 | About 20 cups at 0.72 g each |
| Eco C1 wicks | 20 | ₹118.00 | First candidate |
| Eco C2 wicks | 10 | ₹94.40 | Comparison if C1 drowns |
That set totals ₹330.40 + ₹507.40 + ₹93.22 + ₹118.00 + ₹94.40 = ₹1,143.42. Pour at least six scented cups with C1 and three with C2 (suggested starting points), cure them for the 48–72 hours the oil page states for soy, and burn each one to the end on a heat-proof surface, never unattended.
Planning the pour around Diwali
Wax quantity is rarely the bottleneck for tealights. Pouring and setting are. If you pour by hand from the Large 600 ml Steel Pouring Pitcher (₹708.00), each pitcher fills a tray of cups, and the limiting factor becomes how many trays you can lay out flat and leave undisturbed while they set.
Work out your own rate on the test batch: time how long it takes to wick, pour and clear one tray, then divide 1,100 cups by that rate. Build in the stated cure window before the first sale, and keep a few unsold units back to burn from the actual production batch, not the test batch. If the order is large enough that melting becomes the constraint, the Electric Wax Melter (Imported) 10 kg takes 10 kg per load, so this order's 11.84 kg is one full load plus a top-up, but its display has a stated ±10°C deviation, so check temperature with a separate thermometer.
One honest observation: if the buyer wants a longer-burning tealight, the Big Tealights cup (₹1,180.00 per 100, or ₹11.80 each) changes the whole calculation, and its product title's own claim of "~9 hours burn" is a listing statement, not a figure CSI has verified for your wax and wick. Weigh its fill, rerun the steps above, and burn-test it the same way.
Where this page fits
CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page turns the product above into a raw-material list; these go deeper on the rest:
Three things to buy for this job
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| Pack of 10 | ₹94.40 | In stock |
| Pack of 50 | ₹330.40 | In stock |
| Pack of 100 | ₹649.00 | In stock |
| Pack of 500 | ₹3,009.00 | In stock |
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| 500 g | ₹260.00 | In stock |
| 1 kg | ₹507.40 | In stock |
| 5 kg | ₹2,537.00 | In stock |
| 10 kg | ₹5,074.00 | In stock |
| Option | Price | Status on the October 2026 pull |
|---|---|---|
| Thin (C1) × 100 | ₹590.00 | In stock |
| Thin (C1) × 1,000 | ₹5,900.00 | In stock |
| Thick (C2) × 100 | ₹944.00 | In stock |
| Thick (C2) × 1,000 | ₹9,440.00 | In stock |
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials and production equipment, not finished candles. This guide separates general candle-making practice from what CSI's own product pages state, says plainly where CSI publishes no figure (wick sizes, burn times, hardness), and labels every wick, load, test count or margin as a starting point for your own validation.
Prices are live CSI prices from October 2026; product pages are authoritative. Where a spec is not published — such as a wick size for your jar, a mould's cycle life or a wax's survival temperature — this guide says so rather than filling the gap.
For bulk quotes, GST invoicing, IFRA and MSDS documents, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Frequently asked questions
- I Want My Tealights to Burn for Several Hours Without a Huge Flame — How Do I Choose the Correct Wick for the Cup Diameter?
- I Want to Make Votive Candles That Release From Their Moulds Cleanly — Should I Use Container Wax or a Harder Wax?
- I Want to Make Scented Votives for Hotels — What Raw Materials Should I Test Before Quoting a 2,000-Piece Order?
- I Want to Make Mini Candles as Wedding Favours — How Do I Choose a Jar and Wick Combination for a Very Small Fill Weight?
- I Want to Make 50 g Mini Jar Candles for Corporate Gifting — How Do I Get Noticeable Hot Throw From Such a Small Candle?
- I Want to Make a Candle Discovery Set With Five 50 g Candles — Should Each Fragrance Have Its Own Wick Test Even Though All Jars Are Identical?
- I Want to Sell Mini Candles at ₹199–₹299 — How Do I Choose Raw Materials That Keep COGS Controlled Without Making the Product Feel Cheap?
- I Want to Launch Full-Size Candles, Mini Candles and Wax Melts Using the Same Fragrances — Can the Same Fragrance Percentage Be Used Across All Three Formats?
- I'm Manufacturing 1,000 Candles for Diwali — How Much Wax, Fragrance Oil and Wick Do I Need and Where Should I Buy It?
- How Many Candles Can 1 Kg Wax Make?
Customer reviews: The reviews at the top are genuine, published Judge.me reviews — Sakshi Jain (5★, verified); Ashwini (5★, not recorded as verified); Subhankar Roy (4★, verified); Rahul Singh (5★, verified); S.A. (4★, not recorded as verified); PREETHI PRASATH (5★, verified). Names, ratings, dates and products as recorded by Judge.me.
Product facts (October 2026, CSI live store): Tea Lights Aluminium (empty cups): Pack of 10 ₹94.40, Pack of 50 ₹330.40, Pack of 100 ₹649.00, Pack of 500 ₹3,009.00 — empty aluminium tealight cups. Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 (flakes): 500 g ₹260.00, 1 kg ₹507.40, 5 kg ₹2,537.00, 10 kg ₹5,074.00 — 100% soy container wax in flakes · single pour · stated fragrance load up to 10% · stated shelf life 60 months (cool, dry storage). Eco Candle Wicks: Thin (C1) × 100 ₹590.00, Thin (C1) × 1,000 ₹5,900.00, Thick (C2) × 100 ₹944.00, Thick (C2) × 1,000 ₹9,440.00 — ₹5.90 (C1) and ₹9.44 (C2) per wick at every pack size.
Assumptions: Fragrance load is a percentage of total candle weight (200 g = 184 g wax + 16 g oil at 8%); CSI wax pages phrase their ceilings as a share of wax weight. Material cost per candle covers wax, oil, vessel, wick and dye only — it excludes packaging, labels, labour, shipping and GST. CSI publishes no wick sizing chart, burn times or wax survival temperatures, so every wick named is a candidate to test. Retail prices, budgets, margins and packaging costs are the reader's own figures. Test counts and loads are suggested starting points. Prices re-checked 1 October 2026; product pages are authoritative.