My Jar Holds 220 g of Water — How Much Soy Wax and Fragrance Oil Should I Prepare for Each Candle?

First: which 220 g did you weigh?

A water weight is the best starting point a maker can have: it is your jar, your scale, no listing in the way. But "holds 220 g of water" can mean two different things, and they give different candles.

This page assumes the first row. If you weighed to the brim, the method for finding the fill-line figure is in the water-capacity conversion guide, and how much gap to leave is the headspace rule. The factor itself: water at room temperature weighs about 1 g per ml; candle wax is less dense, so the same space holds fewer grams. Our 0.86 to 0.9 range means the finished candle is roughly 10% to 14% lighter than the water. No CSI wax page states a density, so treat the range as a starting estimate and correct it with your first weighed candle; the reasons are in the density explainer.

The per-candle prep sheet at 6%, 8% and 10%

Fragrance load here is a percentage of the total candle weight (CSI's convention): 8% of a 210 g mix is 16.8 g of oil and 193.2 g of wax, not 210 g of wax with 16.8 g added on top. The test loads are 6%, 8% and 10% because CSI 464's page states "up to 10%" and Lavender's states "6-10% for candles"; the lower of the two stated maxima governs, and a maximum is a ceiling to test beneath, not a target. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and CSI 468 state up to 13%, but the oil page's 10% would still govern with Lavender.

Two lines are worth reading twice. The finished candle does not change with the load. The jar's space is fixed by the fill line; moving from 6% to 10% moves 8.4 g from the wax column into the oil column and changes nothing else. Oil and wax differ a little in density, so confirm the weight at your chosen load with a test pour, but do not rescale the sheet for it. The oil in the jar is a little less than the oil you weighed. The allowance holds oil in the same proportion as wax, so a 12 g top-up reserve at 8% carries about 1 g of oil. That is why you top up from the same melt, not from a fresh one at a different load.

Why you mix more than the jar takes

Mix exactly 198 g and the last few grams will be on the pitcher wall when the jar is still short of the line. That is the whole case for an allowance. We use 12 g per candle, about 6% of the 198 g upper estimate. It is a working figure, not an industry number: it covers what clings to a steel pitcher and the small second pour many makers use when soy sinks as it cools. Your real loss depends on your vessel, your batch size and your wax. The categories of production loss, and how to size them for 500 candles, are in I'm Making 500 Candles in the Same Glass Jar — How Do I Calculate Wax Requirement After Accounting for Fragrance Oil and Production Loss?.

The allowance costs ₹10.79 per candle at 8% with CSI 464 and Lavender: 11.04 g of wax and 0.96 g of oil. Across ten candles, that is 120 g of mix. It is not waste: whatever is not used goes into the next melt, or into a tealight tin for your own burn testing. Once you have poured two or three batches, weigh the pitcher before and after a pour, and shrink the allowance to what you actually lose.

Scaling the sheet to a batch of 10

Multiply the sheet by ten. The allowance scales with it: residue does not grow tenfold with a bigger melt, so a batch of ten usually loses less per candle than a single jar does. Keep the 12 g on the first batch anyway; it becomes your measured figure for the second.

The load test is the better first batch. Its totals are identical to "all at 8%", because three at 6% and three at 10% average to 8%, so it costs nothing extra. It gives you candles at every load you might choose. It needs three separate melts, though, and each melt leaves its own residue, which is exactly what the 12 g per candle is for. Split the wicks across the loads: at each load, at least one C1 and one C2, and the fourth 8% candle with whichever you suspect will win.

What the load does to cost, per candle prepared with CSI 464 and Lavender (wax and oil only): ₹168.20 at 6%, ₹188.75 at 8% (₹98.03 of wax + ₹90.72 of oil) and ₹209.30 at 10%. Moving one candle from 6% to 10% adds ₹41.10: more oil, and slightly less wax. Whether that buys you a better candle is what the burn test decides, and the 6% to 10% post lays out the full cost change.

Buying for the batch: pack sizes and leftovers

Prices are CSI live pricing on 26 September 2026; every pack below is in stock on that date. Costs exclude labour, freight, packaging, GST and the jar you already own.

The recommended basket is two 1 kg bags of CSI 464, two 100 g bottles of Lavender and one pack each of C1 and C2: ₹2,248.20, or ₹224.82 per candle including the spare wax and oil. Swap Lavender for Citrus Lemon and it is ₹1,768.20. Buying the Lavender as 500 g instead makes the basket ₹3,788.20; that is a sensible buy only once your ten candles have told you Lavender at your chosen load is the one.

Prep day, step by step

The wax, oils, wicks and tools on the sheet

Six items, chosen for this sheet on what their pages state, price and stock on 26 September 2026, not on burn performance. Oil tables show every size, candle counts at 12 g (a 150 g candle at 8%) and at 16.8 g (this sheet at 8%).

Frequently asked questions