I'm Comparing a ₹2,000/kg Fragrance That Performs at 10% with a ₹4,000/kg Fragrance That Performs Strongly at 6% — Which One Actually Costs Less per Candle?

The maths as given

The reader's figures are used exactly as stated: oil A at ₹2,000/kg, performing at 10%, and oil B at ₹4,000/kg, performing strongly at 6%. They are the reader's numbers, not CSI prices or CSI performance claims. CSI publishes no throw or dosage data for any oil. The candle is CSI's standard 200 g container. Load is a share of the finished candle, so oil = 200 g × load and wax = 200 g − oil. The wax is Luxury Soy Wax Chunks at ₹599.00 per kilo (₹0.60 a gram, ₹0.599 exactly), rated up to 13%.

Oil A is cheaper on oil alone by ₹8.00, and cheaper again on wax by ₹4.79. The total gap is ₹12.79 a candle. The wick and jar are the same for both, so they add the same ₹76.70 to each and do not change the gap. They do change the share. The oil is 17.8% of candle A's material cost and 20.2% of B's. Material cost here excludes labour, packaging, freight and GST, which are identical for both candles and do not affect the comparison.

The comparison makers usually do instead is to divide the price by the load advantage. "B costs twice as much but uses 40% less, so it's 20% dearer." That compares oil only, and here it happens to give the right winner. It gives the wrong size of gap, and near a break-even it can give the wrong winner. The next section shows why.

Why wax displacement matters

A candle of fixed weight is a fixed budget of grams. Every gram of fragrance you add is a gram of wax you do not. So the true cost of a gram of oil in the candle is its price minus the price of the wax it replaces. For oil A that is ₹2.00 − ₹0.599 = ₹1.401 per gram of load. For oil B it is ₹4.00 − ₹0.599 = ₹3.401. The cheaper the oil, the bigger the share of its price the wax credit cancels. For A the credit cancels 30% of the oil's price, and for B only 15%. That is why the cheaper oil at the higher load looks better once wax is counted, not worse.

The formula also shows when displacement matters most: when the oil is cheap relative to the wax. With wax at ₹0.60 a gram and oils at ₹2 to ₹24 a gram, the credit is never the whole story, but for value oils it is a large part of it. Switch the wax and the credit changes. In Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 (₹507.40/kg), oil + wax is ₹131.33 for A and ₹143.39 for B, a gap of ₹12.06, with break-even load 4.27%. Cheaper wax means a smaller credit, so the higher-load oil gets slightly less help. The winner is the same.

Break-even load and break-even price

Two questions turn the comparison into a decision: how efficient would the dear oil have to be, and how cheap would it have to be? Both come straight from setting the two costs equal.

The first row is the one to take into testing. If the ₹4,000 oil can pass your burn test at 4.1% or lower, it is the cheaper candle. At 6% it is not. The third row is the reverse view: oil A could rise all the way to 14.57% before B became cheaper. That is above the 13% maximum for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, and far above CSI 464's 10%, so on cost alone A wins at every load it is allowed to run at in a CSI wax.

When the loads move

Across every combination in the grid, the ₹2,000 oil stays cheaper. Even at 12% against B at 5%, B is still ₹0.39 dearer. Rows above 10% are allowed only in Luxury Soy Wax Chunks (up to 13%), not CSI 464 (up to 10%). Any load above a wax's stated ceiling is not allowed. The result is robust because the price ratio, 2:1, is larger than any plausible load ratio. Oil B would need to work with about 59% less oil than A before cost stopped favouring A.

So the real question is not cost but whether the candles are equal. "Performs at 10%" and "performs strongly at 6%" may describe two different candles. If B gives a noticeably stronger or cleaner hot throw, that is worth something to your customers, and it can justify ₹12.79 a candle if it supports a higher price or more repeat orders. That is a pricing decision, not a formulation one. My Cheapest Fragrance Oil Requires 12% Load While My Premium Oil Works at 7% — How Do I Calculate Which Is More Profitable at 1,000-candle Scale? works it through at 1,000-candle scale with selling prices, and I'm Paying More for a Concentrated Candle Fragrance Oil — How Do I Test Whether the Higher Price Is Justified by Lower Usage and Better Performance? covers how to blind-test whether the dearer oil really is better.

A note on oil A's 10%. If it only reaches your standard at 10%, check the wick and cure before accepting that load. I'm Using 6% Fragrance Load but My Candle Smells Weak — Should I Immediately Increase It to 10% or Troubleshoot the Wick and Wax First? covers troubleshooting a weak candle before raising the load, and I Want Maximum Hot Throw from My Soy Candle — How Do I Optimise Fragrance Load Without Simply Adding More Oil? covers getting more hot throw without simply adding oil. Every point of load you can take off the cheaper oil widens its cost lead further. If the comparison is part of a larger order, I'm Producing 1,000 × 200 g Candles at 10% Fragrance Load — How Many Kilograms of Fragrance Oil Should I Purchase so I Don't Run Short During Production? shows how the load drives the kilograms you need.

The same test with real CSI oils

The reader's ₹2,000 oil has no CSI equivalent. The cheapest in-stock kilo is Citrus Lemon at ₹2,832.00. So here is the same 10%-versus-6% test on four real CSI pairs, each a value oil against a dearer one, at 1 kg rates. The loads are the reader's scenario, applied to real prices, not a statement of how these oils perform. That has to come from your trial.

With real prices the ratios are much smaller than 2:1, and the answer flips for two of the four pairs. Jasmine costs 1.39 times Citrus Lemon per gram, not twice. So Jasmine at 6% makes a candle ₹4.77 cheaper than Citrus Lemon at 10%, and it would stay cheaper up to 6.72%. Mango Coconut at 6% beats British Rose at 10% by ₹9.00, with a tie load of 7.34%. Only when the price gap widens, as with Lavender (1.70×) or Dark Vanilla (2.25×) against a value oil, does the 10% oil win again. The reader's 2:1 ratio is what made the cheap oil the clear winner, and real catalogues are often closer together than that.

None of this ranks these oils. They are different scents, and CSI has no throw measurements for any of them. The table shows the price structure a load difference has to beat. For a value/premium pair of your own, compute the tie load before you run the trial. Then you know which result would change your decision, and you can set the trial's loads to bracket it. One Fragrance Oil Costs More but Gives Stronger Hot Throw at a Lower Dosage — How Do I Compare Fragrance Oils by Cost per Finished Candle Rather than Price per Kilogram? extends the formula to every cost in a finished candle, and I Want to Reduce Fragrance Cost Without Making My Candles Smell Weaker — Should I First Optimise Dosage, Wax Compatibility, Wick Performance or Fragrance Selection? covers cutting fragrance cost without weakening the candle.

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