I'm Starting a Wax Melt Business — Which Wax, Fragrance Oils, Dyes and Moulds Do I Need?

The wax — and why there is no melt wax

A wax melt does not have a wick. It sits in a warmer and releases scent as it melts, and it is thrown away when the scent is spent. That changes what you need from the wax. You want it to hold a lot of oil, because a melt has no flame to project scent and makers commonly run melts at a higher load than candles. You want it to set firmly enough to survive a clamshell or pop out of a mould. And you want to know its ceiling, because a load above what the wax maker states is a guess.

On those facts, Luxury Soy Wax Chunks are the default for this plan. They are the only CSI wax with a published ceiling above 10%, and a soft container soy pours well into clamshells and containers. The trade-off is softness: a container soy is not designed to release cleanly from a detailed mould. If your brand is built on shapes — roses, clouds, coffee beans — test Soy Pillar Wax in the mould you will use. Its ceiling is not in our data, so ask for the wax maker's stated maximum on WhatsApp before you run it at melt loads. Fully Refined Paraffin Wax Pellets cost the least per pack, but there is no published ceiling for those either, and a paraffin melt is a different product story from a soy one.

Fragrance load and the ceiling rules

Load is oil as a percentage of the finished weight. A 60 g pack at 10% is 6 g of oil and 54 g of wax. The rules for this plan are simple. Chunks: up to 13%. CSI 464: up to 10%. Those are the wax makers' stated formulation maximums, not regulatory limits. Every other wax: no ceiling published in our data — ask before you set a load, and treat 6–10% as a test range only. Never exceed 13% in any wax on this page.

From 10% to 13% the oil cost per pack rises by 30% and the number of packs a kilo of oil scents falls from 166.7 to 128.2. Whether that buys a stronger melt depends on the oil and the wax; it is not automatic. That is why the test stage below tries 8%, 10% and 12% for each oil, all within the Chunks ceiling. How Much Fragrance Oil Should I Use in Wax Melts? and Best Fragrance Load for Strong Wax Melts go deeper on the load question.

Six oils for a first melt range

Six scents is enough to fill a small shelf and a first market stall without tying up money in stock. These six cover fruit, gourmand, fresh and citrus — families commonly bought in melts — and all have an in-stock 15 g and 100 g. Five of the six are among the 24 oils in the catalogue where the 1 kg is genuinely cheaper per gram than the 100 g. That matters more for melts than for candles, because the oil is a bigger share of every pack. We have not published throw measurements for any oil, so these are chosen on family, price and price breaks, not on strength.

Material cost per pack runs from ₹83.09 to ₹97.25, of which the container is ₹29.50 and the wax ₹32.35. It excludes labels, outer packaging, labour, freight and GST. The price-break column is the one to watch as you grow. Once Mango Coconut sells a kilo a month, buying the 1 kg instead of ten 100 g bottles saves ₹1,036.00 on the same oil.

Colour and shape: dyes, moulds, containers

Colour tells a customer what a melt smells like before they open it. CSI lists liquid dyes, dye chips and mica. Two gaps matter for a melt range: green and yellow liquid dyes are out of stock, and so are green dye chips. Yellow is covered by yellow dye chips (₹250.00). For a green-looking fresh scent, you can use blue liquid dye for a cool colour, or green mica (10 g ₹57.82) for a shimmer effect — mica is a surface pigment and colours differently from a dye, so test it. Dye doses per kilo of wax are not in our data; follow each dye's product page and test on a small batch first.

Containers or moulds?

There are two ways to make and sell a melt. Pour straight into a container: CSI's Wax Melts Containers come in heart or square, ₹147.50 for 5, ₹295.00 for 10, ₹1,475.00 for 50 and ₹2,950.00 for 100 — ₹29.50 each at every pack size. Their fill weight is not published, so weigh one filled with water before you plan; this page assumes 60 g, and if yours holds less, every pack figure scales down. Or cast in a silicone mould and pack the pieces in your own bags or boxes. Cavity weights are not published for any mould either: fill one cavity with water or wax and weigh it.

For a launch, one container style and one mould is plenty. This plan uses the containers for the 96 retail packs and a 15-Cavity Rose Mould (₹153.40) for the test stage, because small moulded pieces let you test three loads per oil cheaply. The Wax Sachet Mould makes aroma sachets, a related but separate product — see I Want to Make Soy Candles, Wax Melts and Mould Candles — Can I Use the Same Fragrance Oils for All Three? if you plan to sell more than one product type from the same oils.

Testing before you launch

Each 15 g tester runs a three-load test: three 30 g batches at 8%, 10% and 12% (2.4 g, 3 g and 3.6 g of oil, 9 g in all), leaving 6 g to re-test the winning load. All three loads sit inside the Chunks ceiling of 13%.

The full bill

Test and launch together come to ₹11,964.60. The average per pack (₹103.39) is higher than the per-pack table above because it spreads the dyes, the 4 spare containers and the wax allowance across 96 packs; the dyes in particular will last well beyond this first run. Labels, outer packaging, labour, freight and GST are not included. The working allowance of 3–5% for pour loss is built into the wax line.

Once your melts are selling, Wholesale Fragrance Oils for Wax Melt Businesses covers buying oils for a running melt business, Where to Buy Wax, Fragrance Oils and Moulds for Starting a Wax Melt Business covers where to buy wax, oils and moulds together, and I Want One Supplier for Wax, Fragrance Oils, Wicks, Jars, Dyes and Moulds — What Should I Check Before Buying All My Candle Raw Materials From Them? lists what to check before you put your whole supply with one supplier.

Frequently asked questions