I'm Launching 10 Candle Fragrances — How Do I Decide Which Scents Deserve 1 Kg Fragrance Oil Purchases and Which Should Remain in Smaller Trial Sizes?

The size ladder for a launch

Most launch plans treat the decision as two sizes, the little test bottle and the big production pack. That skips the middle, and the middle is where most of your ten scents should sit for their first sales cycle. CSI lists oils in up to five sizes, 15 g, 50 g, 100 g, 500 g and 1 kg. What decides the stage is the job the oil has to do. Screening answers whether the scent works in your wax at all, so it needs enough oil for one or two test candles. The first pour answers whether customers buy it, so it needs enough for a small real batch of about 12 to 24 candles. Production answers how much you need to keep on the shelf, and only a scent that has already sold can answer that.

Read the saving column first. Five of the ten, Sandalwood, Santal Noir, Saffron Cedarwood, Dark Vanilla and Lavender, save 3.3% or less at 1 kg. Sandalwood saves nothing at all: ₹5.03 a gram at both sizes. For those scents the kilo is a stock decision, never a price decision. The other five save 8.8% to 22.0%, and Honeydew Melon and Mango Coconut save more than a fifth. The last column is explained in the break-even test. It is the number of grams you would have to pour before the kilo costs less than the same grams bought in 100 g bottles.

Two scents show that the break is not always where you expect it. Cinnamon's 500 g costs ₹2,950.00, which is ₹5.90 a gram, exactly the 100 g rate. The whole 10.0% saving sits in the 1 kg at ₹5.31. Saffron Cedarwood runs the other way. Its 500 g at ₹2,584.20 (₹5.17/g) is 24.7% cheaper per gram than its own 1 kg at ₹6,867.60 (₹6.87/g). If Saffron Cedarwood earns a production size, buy two 500 g bottles, not the kilo. Check the full ladder for every scent before you assume the biggest pack is the cheapest.

The four evidence gates

The gates run in order because each one is cheaper to fail than the next. Failing Gate 1 costs one 15 g bottle. Failing Gate 3 costs a first pour of candles that did not sell. Failing after a kilo purchase costs the kilo, the wax it was going into, and the shelf space. Checking a scent against every gate before the big purchase means the expensive failures happen with small bottles.

The kilo break-even test

Gate 4 needs one number per oil: how much of the kilo you must use before it beats buying bottles. The calculation is short:

The test explains why the kilo is a stock decision for most oils. Lavender's break-even is 967 g, which means you have to use almost the whole kilo before it saves you anything, about 60.4 candles at 16 g. Sandalwood's is exactly 1,000 g, so it never saves. Honeydew Melon's is 780 g, about 48.8 candles. If you are confident of pouring 50 Honeydew candles, the kilo is cheaper than eight 100 g bottles even if a fifth of it sits unused for a while. Mango Coconut's break-even is 793 g, and British Rose's is 897 g.

The test works in bottles as well as grams. The real alternative to the kilo is not one 100 g bottle. It is however many 100 g bottles you end up buying over the same period. If each reorder also carries a delivery charge from your courier or a trip to collect it, add that to the bottle side as your own example figure. Frequent small orders cost time, and for a scent that sells steadily that time is worth money. That is the honest case for the kilo on a flat-priced oil: fewer orders and fewer stockouts, not a cheaper gram.

Ten scents, one cycle later

The example maker screened all ten in 15 g (₹1,099.92), found that all ten passed Gate 1 at 8% in Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, and poured 18 candles of each from a 300 g launch quantity. That is 288 g of oil plus a small buffer for pour loss, bought in the cheapest in-stock combination for each oil, ₹17,236.50 in total. After six weeks they recorded sell-through and forecast how many candles of each they would pour per month. Gate 4 uses a 12-week window, three months of that forecast at 16 g a candle.

5 scents earned the kilo: Lavender, British Rose, Dark Vanilla, Mango Coconut, Cinnamon. Together that is ₹25,209.00, against ₹53,544.80 for all ten kilos on day one. Look at how they got there. Lavender, Dark Vanilla and British Rose will pour more than a kilo in 12 weeks on their own. Cinnamon and Mango Coconut forecast less than a kilo, but each clears its own break-even because each has a real 1 kg saving. Honeydew Melon forecasts 768 g, just under its 780 g break-even. Its 500 g already carries the kilo's ₹3.40 rate, though, so it gets a 500 g bottle (₹1,699.20) and 100 g top-ups if it runs ahead of forecast. Jasmine sold only 12 of 18, 67%, and stays at 100 g for another cycle even though its kilo is 8.8% cheaper. Evidence comes before price.

Santal Noir is the instructive failure. It sold 15 of 18, better than several kilo scents, but it fails Gate 2. At its 1 kg rate, 16 g costs ₹145.92, taking the 200 g candle's material cost to ₹332.84 (wax, wick and jar included). British Rose's is ₹236.00. If both sit at the same price in the range, Santal Noir sells well because it is underpriced. The fix is a price, not a kilo. Move it into a premium line at a price that carries its cost, rerun Gate 3 at that price, and only then consider production quantities. 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 through the same trade-off at 1,000-candle scale.

Saffron Cedarwood sold 11 of 18, 61%, below the example threshold, so it stays in bottles. If it does pass next cycle, remember its ladder. The 500 g at ₹2,584.20 is the production size, because it is cheaper per gram than the kilo. Sandalwood sold 9 of 18 and stays at 100 g. With no price step anywhere above 50 g, there is no reason ever to buy more of it than one sales cycle needs.

Building the order

Once the gates have sorted the range, the order is three short lists. Keep them separate on your purchase sheet so the reason for each size is written down next to it.

The production kilos cost ₹25,209.00, the Honeydew Melon 500 g ₹1,699.20, and the second-cycle bottles for three scents cost ₹4,886.64. The order puts money where the sales are. How much oil each kilo scent actually needs for a fixed candle count, including trials and pour loss, is the job of the 500-candle order calculation and the 1,000-candle version at 10%. How to split a fixed budget across scents that sell at different rates is covered in I'm Making 500 Candles Across Five Fragrances — How Do I Divide My Fragrance Oil Purchase When Some Scents Are Expected to Sell More than Others?.

Where launch purchasing goes wrong

Most expensive launch mistakes come from buying the right size for the wrong reason. Four come up again and again.

Buying the kilo to get the price. On most oils there is no price to get. Check the ladder. If the 100 g and 1 kg are within a percent of each other, the kilo is purely a stock decision. Buying the kilo because the scent tested well. Gate 1 tells you the candle works, not that anyone will buy it. A scent you love at the bench can still sit at 40% sell-through. Leaving winners in 15 g. Making a proven scent from testers costs the 15 g premium, a median 23.1% per gram, on every candle. Move proven scents to 100 g at least, straight away. Treating all ten scents the same. A range almost always splits into a few steady sellers, a middle group and a tail. Buying one size for all of them overstocks the tail and understocks the winners.

There is one more quiet error, and it is about load, not size. A scent that needed 10% to pass Gate 1 uses 25% more oil per candle than one at 8%, so it reaches its kilo sooner and costs more per candle. Its gates should be run at 20 g a candle, not 16 g. If a launch scent only passes at a different load from the rest of the range, record that load against it. I'm Making Different Candle Fragrances in the Same Soy Wax — Should Every Scent Automatically Use the Same 8% Fragrance Load? explains why scents should not automatically share one load, and I'm Buying Fragrance Oil in Bulk for Candle Production — How Should I Determine the Optimum Dosage Before Calculating How Many Kilograms to Order? sets the dosage before you calculate kilos.

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