My Candle Jar Supplier Lists Capacity in ml but My Candle Formula Is in grams — How Do I Calculate Exactly How Much Wax Each Jar Needs?

The five links from ml to grams

Every link multiplies the previous one by a single number. Two of those numbers are facts about the jar you can weigh; one is a fact about your wax you can weigh; one is your choice; one is your formula. Keeping them in separate links is what makes the calculation repeatable: when something changes (a new wax, a taller lid, a new load), you change one cell, not the whole method. Why a 200 ml jar is not a 200 g candle in the first place is covered in the cluster hub; this page is the arithmetic.

Link 1 · Brim capacity: ml, which is also grams of water

Start from the volume the listing gives, or better, from the water your own jar holds to the brim on a tared scale. For water, 1 ml weighs about 1 g, so a 200 ml brim reads about 200 g. Two cautions. A listing's ml figure may be to the brim or already to a fill line; the White Matte page calls its figure "a fill weight of 200 ml", which answers neither question. And the ml figure describes the glass, so a thick base or a threaded neck is already inside it.

Link 2 · Fill fraction: the share of the jar you actually fill

You pour to a fill line below the rim, so multiply the brim figure by the fraction of the jar that sits below that line. For a straight-sided jar you can estimate it from depths: (inside depth − headspace) ÷ inside depth. In our standard worked example, an 8 cm jar with about 1 cm of glass base has about 7 cm of inside depth, and a 1 cm gap leaves 6/7, or 86%; the gap costs 14%. For a jar with a shoulder, a neck or a taper, depths do not convert to volumes, so skip the estimate and weigh water to your line. How much gap to leave is the headspace rule; the sheet only needs the number.

Link 3 · Density factor: from grams of water to grams of candle

Wax is less dense than water, so the same space holds fewer grams of it. A commonly used candle-maker rule of thumb multiplies the water weight by roughly 0.86 to 0.9. It is not a CSI specification: no CSI wax page states a density. That is why link 3 is a range in a planning sheet and a single measured number in a production sheet, your own factor = cooled candle weight ÷ water weight to the same line. The physics, and why hot wax shrinks as it sets, is in the density explainer.

Link 4 · Planning weight: one number, chosen inside the range

A range cannot be multiplied into a wax order, so pick one figure inside it and write down why. We plan the Matte jar at 150 g: inside the 147 to 154 g band, round, and the figure other CSI guides use. Choose low if you will print a net weight later; you can always pour a little more, but you cannot label a candle heavier than it is. Setting a label figure below your lowest weighed candle is the net-weight process.

Link 5 · The load split: oil and wax from the same total

CSI's convention puts the load on the finished candle's total weight. Oil = planning weight × load; wax = planning weight − oil. At 8%, 150 g becomes 12 g of oil and 138 g of wax. The total does not change when the load does, because the fill line has not moved; oil's density differs a little from wax's, so confirm with a test pour at your real load. The cost side of moving from 6% to 10% is the 6% to 10% load guide.

Calculator table: three CSI jars run through the chain

We picked three in-stock CSI jars because each tests the chain differently. The White Matte states a volume. The Mini Glass Jar states a small volume and nothing else. The Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid states grams. None states an inside diameter, and none says whether its figure is to the brim. Every number below is a worked example on the assumptions shown; the right-hand column tells you which weighing replaces them.

The Matte row: the chain as designed

This is the series' standard worked example, so its numbers match the cluster hub: 200 ml treated as brim, width 7 cm treated as outside, a 1 cm glass base, straight sides. The result, about 150 g of candle, is a planning figure. If "200 ml" turns out to be a fill-line figure already, link 2 becomes 1 and the candle is about 172 to 180 g; your first water-fill tells you which world you are in.

The Mini row: the same maths, less forgiving

At 40 ml, every gram is 2.5% of the jar. The page gives no height, so we cannot estimate the fill fraction from depths; 0.8 is a placeholder, lower than the Matte's because the same few millimetres of gap under a lid take a bigger share of a short jar. The load split lands on 2.24 g of oil, which a 1 g scale cannot weigh. That is the practical lesson of small jars: either weigh oil for a batch (22 g for ten, which any scale handles) and pour from one jug, or use a scale that reads 0.1 g.

The Clear row: when the listing is already in grams

"150g fill capacity" skips link 1, but it does not tell you where it lands. Reading A: 150 g is the finished candle, so it enters at link 4 and needs roughly 167 to 174 g of water's worth of space below the fill line. Reading B: 150 g is water, so it enters at the water-to-fill-line step and gives a 129 to 135 g candle. The page also gives "Height 8cm, outer diameter 7cm", close to the Matte's listed size, with a base of about 6.5 cm and a curved profile. Two jars of similar outside size listed as "200 ml" and "150g" may hold similar candles measured two different ways, or may not: only a weighing says which. The shape side of that question is the same-ml, different-shape post.

Spreadsheet-ready: the formulas, cell by cell

The layout below works in Google Sheets or Excel. Row 1 holds headings; each jar gets its own row from row 2. Columns B to E are inputs (yellow in your sheet if you like); F onwards are formulas. Type E as a decimal (0.88) and format I as a percentage (or type 0.08); never type either as a whole number.

Two design choices matter. First, D2 is the pivot: a measured number there makes B and C irrelevant, which is exactly what you want once you have weighed. Second, H2 is typed, not calculated, until you have a test pour, because a planning weight is a decision; after the test it becomes =ROUND(D2*E2,0) with your own factor in E2. The batch columns M and N are raw requirements. They contain no allowance for pitcher residue, top-ups or rejects; how much extra to add at 100 candles is the 100-candle batch guide, and the loss categories at 500 are in the 500-candle production-loss guide.

Building and calibrating the sheet

Five sheet errors that cost makers wax or load

1. Weighing out the ml figure as grams of wax

A maker reads "200 ml", melts 200 g of wax per jar, and pours until the jar is full. In the worked example the jar takes about 150 g of candle, so 50 g per jar is left in the jug: across 10 jars, 500 g of melted wax, ₹253.70 at the 1 kg price. It keeps, but it has been heated, perhaps scented at a load meant for a different total, and it is cash sitting in a jug. The fix is link 2 and link 3, in that order.

2. Taking the load on the wax, not the total

If you weigh 138 g of wax and then add 8% of that (11.04 g), the candle is 149.04 g and the true load is 7.4%, not 8%. The opposite error, 150 g of wax plus 12 g of oil, makes a 162 g candle that will not fit to the fill line. CSI's convention is load on total weight: oil = total × load, wax = total − oil. Some suppliers and some oil pages phrase it differently, which leads to error 5.

3. Typing 8 instead of 8%

In a sheet, =H2*I2 with I2 = 8 gives 1,200 g of oil for a 150 g candle. Nobody pours that, but the batch column feeds your oil order, and a 120 g requirement becoming 12,000 g is the kind of number that gets copied into a WhatsApp message at midnight. Format the load column as a percentage, or add a check that flags any load above 0.13.

4. Rounding small jars into a different load

A 28 g mini candle at 8% needs 2.24 g of oil. Round to 2 g and the load is 7.1%; round to 3 g and it is 10.7%, which would exceed the 10% ceiling. In the Matte jar, the same half-gram is invisible. For small jars, weigh oil for the whole batch into the wax (22 g for ten minis) rather than per jar, or use a scale that reads 0.1 g.

5. Mixing pounds, ounces and grams

Imported recipes say "1 oz per pound", and even one CSI oil page phrases its load as "8-10% fragrance oil per pound of wax" (Cucumber Green Tea). A percentage is a percentage in any unit: 8% of a pound (453.6 g) is 36.3 g. The trap is the ounce mode on a digital scale; the CSI scale page says it shows "grams or ounces". Check the unit on the display before every session, and keep the sheet in grams only.

Jars, scale and wax to calibrate the sheet

Five items, chosen because each exercises a different part of the chain, on what their pages state, price and stock on 26 September 2026. They are not ranked on burn performance: CSI publishes no burn data for these jars.

From the sheet to a costed candle and a 10-candle order

Add three price columns to the sheet: jar per unit, wax per gram, oil per gram. The costs below use CSI live pricing on 26 September 2026: CSI 464 at ₹0.51 per gram (1 kg to 10 kg are the same per gram), Lavender at ₹5.24 per gram (500 g price; the 100 g bottle is ₹5.40), Eco C1 ₹5.90 and C2 ₹9.44 per wick. Lavender is only the costing example; its page states "Recommended fragrance load 6-10% for candles" and every size is in stock. Costs exclude labour, freight, packaging and GST.

The wick column is a costing placeholder, not a recommendation: no CSI listing states an inside diameter, so bracket C1 against C2 in your own jar and let the melt pool decide (the diameter-and-wick hub). Notice where the money is. In the Matte candle, jar, wax and oil are each about a third of the materials. In the Clear jar, the lid and the stated pour figure cost ₹23.60 more per jar, and whether the candle is 150 g or 135 g changes the materials by less than that, but changes what you can honestly sell it as by 15 g. In the mini, the jar is the largest single cost even at the 100-pack price.

What 10 Matte candles cost, and what you actually buy

From the sheet, 10 candles need 1,380 g of wax, 120 g of oil and 10 wicks. Priced at exact grams, materials come to ₹2,131.41. But packs come in fixed sizes: 10 jars (one pack of 10, ₹708.00), 2 × 1 kg of CSI 464 (₹507.40 each), Lavender 100 g + 50 g (₹540.00 + ₹270.00) and C2 10 (₹94.40) come to ₹2,627.20, leaving 620 g of wax and 30 g of oil for top-ups and the next batch. The gap between those two numbers is not waste; it is stock. For 100 candles, the pack-size puzzle and the loss allowance are the 100-candle batch guide.

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