What Fragrance Load Should You Use for Floral, Woody and Gourmand Oils?

 

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CSI method guides · fragrance load
Six families, six starting loads — the table that stops one candle shouting while the next one whispers
"Dropped the vanilla from 10% to 6% and the sweating stopped. Same oil, and it actually smells cleaner now."
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Vanilla Bean · 500g
"My range never felt consistent until I ran different loads per family. Customers stopped asking why one jar was weaker."
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Fragrance Oils · 1kg
"Citrus at 10% in Luxury Soy Chunks finally reads the way it does in the bottle. Fourteen-day cure did the rest."
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Citrus Lemon · 500g
"Family loads cut about 1.8kg of oil off our Diwali run and nothing smelled weaker. That paid for the jars."
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Bulk order · 5kg+
"Writing the locked load into the batch sheet ended the guessing. Two people now pour identical candles."
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Luxury Soy Chunks · 10kg
"Bulk enquiry on WhatsApp got me pricing and the documentation my corporate client needed in one thread."
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Bulk order · 5kg+
"Dropped the vanilla from 10% to 6% and the sweating stopped. Same oil, and it actually smells cleaner now."
Placeholder — swap for real reviewPune
Vanilla Bean · 500g
"My range never felt consistent until I ran different loads per family. Customers stopped asking why one jar was weaker."
Placeholder — swap for real reviewJaipur
Fragrance Oils · 1kg
"Citrus at 10% in Luxury Soy Chunks finally reads the way it does in the bottle. Fourteen-day cure did the rest."
Placeholder — swap for real reviewChennai
Citrus Lemon · 500g
"Family loads cut about 1.8kg of oil off our Diwali run and nothing smelled weaker. That paid for the jars."
Placeholder — swap for real reviewMumbai
Bulk order · 5kg+
"Writing the locked load into the batch sheet ended the guessing. Two people now pour identical candles."
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Luxury Soy Chunks · 10kg
"Bulk enquiry on WhatsApp got me pricing and the documentation my corporate client needed in one thread."
Placeholder — swap for real reviewDelhi
Bulk order · 5kg+
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Candle Making Method · Fragrance Load

What Fragrance Load Should You Use for Floral, Woody and Gourmand Oils?

Not one number for the whole range. Six families, six starting points — 6% for gourmand and heavy oriental up to 10% for fresh and citrus — with grams per candle, oil cost per candle and the wax ceiling that caps all of it.
6% → 10%
six family starting loads · 12g to 20g per 200g candle · CSI live pricing, August 2026
Quick answers — read this first
What load should each family run at? As starting points to confirm by your own testing: gourmand and heavy oriental 6%, spice 7%, woody and heavy indolic floral 8%, delicate floral 9%, fresh, citrus, green and aquatic 10%.

What is that in grams? On a 200g finished candle: 12g, 14g, 16g, 18g and 20g of oil respectively, with the balance in wax. Load is always calculated on finished candle weight, not on wax weight.

What is the ceiling? Luxury Soy Wax Chunks up to 13%, Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 up to 10%. On CSI 464 the fresh family sits exactly at the ceiling with no headroom to adjust upward — that is a wax decision, not a load decision.

Why not run everything at one number? Because a single percentage makes some candles shout and others whisper, and a customer reads that inconsistency as unreliable quality rather than as varied composition.
The short answer
The pick: six family starting loads — 6% gourmand and heavy oriental, 7% spice, 8% woody and heavy indolic floral, 9% delicate floral, 10% fresh, citrus, green and aquatic.
The why: heavy molecules carry efficiently and turn cloying when overdosed; volatile top notes need volume and a full cure just to survive to the customer's nose.
The next step: pour one candle per scent at its family start, cure 14 to 21 days, rank the set blind, adjust outliers by ±2%, tune the wick, then lock the number into a batch sheet.
Shop: CSI Fragrance Oils · Luxury Soy Chunks (13% ceiling) · CSI 464 (10% ceiling) · bulk on WhatsApp.
In this guide
The load ladder — starting percentage by family, on a 200g candle FRESH · CITRUS · GREEN · AQUATIC — 10% · 20g oil · 180g wax DELICATE FLORAL — 9% · 18g oil · 182g wax WOODY & HEAVY INDOLIC FLORAL — 8% · 16g oil · 184g wax SPICE — 7% · 14g oil · 186g wax GOURMAND & HEAVY ORIENTAL — 6% · 12g oil · 188g wax
Bar width is the starting load. The ladder descends because scent weight ascends: the heavier and more tenacious the molecule, the less of it you need to reach the same perceived strength in the room. Every rung sits under the 13% ceiling of Luxury Soy Chunks; the top rung sits exactly at the 10% ceiling of CSI 464.
The oils
All CSI fragrance oils
The ceiling
Luxury Soy Chunks · 13% load
Bulk
Order on WhatsApp
Straight answer
What fragrance load should you use for floral, woody and gourmand oils?
Not one number. Use a starting load per family and confirm each by your own testing. Gourmand and heavy oriental at 6% — Vanilla Bean, Regal Royal Oud, Coffee Vanilla Tobacco — because heavy molecules carry efficiently and excess reads cloying and risks sweating. Spice at 7% — Cinnamon, Pumpkin Spice — because spice reads strongly and turns harsh before it turns weak. Woody at 8% — Sandalwood, Vetiver, Palo Santo — woods need enough material to register but sit quietly by nature. Florals split: heavy indolic florals at 8% — Mogra, Rajnigandha, Raat Ki Rani — while delicate florals need 9%, such as Japanese Cherry Blossom and Ylang Ylang. Fresh, citrus, green and aquatic at 10% — volatile top notes need volume and a full cure to survive. On a 200g candle that is 12g, 14g, 16g, 18g and 20g. Cap everything at your wax: Luxury Soy Chunks up to 13%, CSI 464 up to 10%.
One line: 6% gourmand and oriental, 7% spice, 8% woody and indolic floral, 9% delicate floral, 10% fresh and citrus — starting points, tested, then locked into a batch sheet.
Calibrating a range costs one candle per scent. 15g trial sizes from ₹68 and 100g launch sizes from ₹300 are enough to run a full family calibration before you commit to 500g or 1kg.
Browse fragrance oils

The master load table

Most makers pick one percentage on day one and never revisit it. That single decision is the most common reason a catalogue feels inconsistent — and inconsistency is the thing customers punish hardest.

Almost every Indian candle maker runs the whole range at 8%, or at 10%, because that is the number they were given when they started. It is a reasonable place to begin and a poor place to stay. A fragrance oil is not one substance; it is a blend of molecules with wildly different weights, volatilities and detection thresholds. Vanillin, oud resinoids and amber musks are heavy, tenacious and low-threshold: a little goes a long way and stays a long time. Limonene, linalool and the light green and aquatic materials are the opposite — they evaporate readily, they are the first thing lost in a hot pour, and by the time the candle has cured for two weeks a meaningful proportion of what you dosed has already gone.

Run both at the same percentage and you get exactly what you would expect. The vanilla is dense, sweet and slightly heavy in the room, and at the top of the range it may bead oil on the surface within a fortnight. The citrus, poured on the same day at the same number, reads polite at best. The customer who buys both does not think "these are compositionally different scent families with different volatility profiles". They think one candle is good and the other is a dud, and they conclude the brand is inconsistent. That judgement is much harder to recover from than a single weak scent, because it attaches to everything you sell.

The fix is to stop treating load as a brand-wide constant and start treating it as a per-family variable that you set once, test, and then never improvise again. Below is the working table. Every figure is a starting point to be confirmed by your own testing in your own wax, jar and room — not a fixed rule. Oil cost per candle is calculated at CSI 1kg pricing, which is the honest basis for anyone running production volumes; at 100g pricing the same candles cost slightly more.

Master table · fragrance load by family · 200g finished candle
Starting load, grams per candle and oil cost per candle at CSI 1kg pricing
Family Representative CSI oils Start Oil per 200g candle Oil cost per candle
Gourmand & heavy oriental Vanilla Bean · Regal Royal Oud · Coffee Vanilla Tobacco · Dark Vanilla Oud · Tobacco Vanilla 6% 12g oil · 188g wax ₹91.75 · ₹78.00 · ₹103.19 · ₹68.29 · ₹89.99
Spice Cinnamon · Apple Cinnamon · Pumpkin Spice · Spicy Cinnamon 7% 14g oil · 186g wax ₹74.34 · ₹66.42 · ₹74.34 · ₹90.99
Woody Sandalwood · Vetiver · Palo Santo · Saffron Cedarwood · Sacred Sandal Ember 8% 16g oil · 184g wax ₹80.43 · ₹90.62 · ₹96.29 · ₹109.89 · ₹111.98
Floral — heavy & indolic Mogra · Rajnigandha · Raat Ki Rani · Jasmine 8% 16g oil · 184g wax ₹102.72 · ₹71.36 · ₹108.38 · ₹62.77
Floral — delicate Japanese Cherry Blossom · Gardenia · Ylang Ylang Flower · British Rose 9% 18g oil · 182g wax ₹87.16 · ₹77.98 · ₹95.58 · ₹55.22
Fresh, citrus, green & aquatic Citrus Lemon · Zesty Lemon · Eucalyptus Spearmint · Verbena · Blue Ocean 10% 20g oil · 180g wax ₹56.64 · ₹68.00 · ₹61.36 · ₹94.40 · ₹99.12
How to read the cost column: costs are listed in the same order as the oils in the row, and are calculated as 1kg price ÷ 1000 × grams of oil in the candle. Mogra is the one exception — it is stocked as a 100g pack at ₹642, so ₹6.42/g × 16g = ₹102.72. Everything else uses the 1kg rate. Add wax, wick and jar for the full materials cost — worked through in the cost section below.
The arithmetic that trips people up
Fragrance load is a percentage of the finished candle, not of the wax. A 200g candle at 8% is 16g of oil and 184g of wax, not 16g of oil and 200g of wax. Calculating on wax weight quietly under-doses every candle and is the single most common reason a maker runs short of wax mid-batch and long on oil at year end.

Family by family, and why the number is what it is

1
Gourmand & heavy oriental · start at 6%
Vanilla, oud, amber, resin, tobacco, coffee
These are the lowest starting points in the range and the ones makers resist most, because it feels counter-intuitive to put less of an expensive oil into a premium candle. The reasoning is physical. Vanillin, benzoin, labdanum, oud resinoids and coffee pyrazines are heavy, tenacious materials with very low odour thresholds — a small quantity in the melt pool goes on releasing for hours. Push them to 10% and you do not get a candle that is 60% stronger; you get one that is cloying in the first ten minutes and flat by hour two, because the melt pool is saturated and the nose fatigues fast. You also invite the two visible faults that make a candle look cheap: oil beading on the surface after a fortnight, and a wick that struggles because it is drawing fuel loaded with more oil than the wax can hold.

There is a commercial argument too. At 6% a Vanilla Bean candle carries ₹91.75 of oil instead of ₹152.92 at 10% — and the 6% candle is very often the better-smelling one. Regal Royal Oud at 6% is ₹78.00 per candle, which is what makes a genuinely premium oud tier viable at Indian price points. If your gourmand still reads quiet at 6% after a full cure, go to 8%, not to 12%.
Oil 1kg price Per gram 12g @ 6% Candles per 1kg
Vanilla Bean ₹7,646 ₹7.65 ₹91.75 ≈83
Regal Royal Oud ₹6,500 ₹6.50 ₹78.00 ≈83
Dark Vanilla Oud ₹5,691 ₹5.69 ₹68.29 ≈83
Tobacco Vanilla ₹7,499 ₹7.50 ₹89.99 ≈83
Coffee Vanilla Tobacco ₹8,599 ₹8.60 ₹103.19 ≈83
Cure 21 days. Heavy orientals gain noticeably between day 14 and day 21 — judge them early and you will over-dose them. Shop oriental oils
Sweating is a load symptom before it is a wax fault. Beads of oil on the surface of a cured candle mean the wax is holding more fragrance than it can keep in solution. Storage temperature makes it worse, but the trigger is almost always a heavy oil dosed near the ceiling. Drop the load by 2%, re-pour, and cure in a closed box away from sunlight. If it persists at the family starting point, the wax is the variable to change, not the oil.
2
Spice · start at 7%
Cinnamon, clove, pepper, warm festive blends
Spice belongs at the low end for a different reason than gourmand. Spice materials are not merely strong, they are sharp — cinnamic aldehyde and eugenol read as heat and bite as much as scent, and past a certain concentration they stop smelling like a bakery and start smelling like a chemistry set. The failure mode is not weakness; it is harshness, and a harsh candle gets returned more often than a quiet one. Spice also tends to be the family that customers burn for shorter sessions, so a lower load that stays pleasant for two hours beats a higher one that clears the room in twenty minutes.

Cinnamon at 7% is ₹74.34 of oil per candle, and Apple Cinnamon blends — where the fruit softens the spike — can usually take the full 8% if you want a stronger festive candle. Straight spice rarely should.
Oil 1kg price Per gram 14g @ 7% Candles per 1kg
Apple Cinnamon ₹4,744 ₹4.74 ₹66.42 ≈71
Cinnamon ₹5,310 ₹5.31 ₹74.34 ≈71
Pumpkin Spice ₹5,310 ₹5.31 ₹74.34 ≈71
Spicy Cinnamon ₹6,499 ₹6.50 ₹90.99 ≈71
Test in a small room. Spice that is perfect in a studio is often overwhelming in a 10 x 10 ft bedroom. Buy Pumpkin Spice
3
Woody · start at 8%
Sandalwood, cedar, vetiver, palo santo
Woods sit in the middle because they are quiet by design. Sandalwood and cedar materials are substantive and long-lasting, but they are also low-contrast — they fill a room rather than announce themselves, which is precisely why they work for gifting, festival and hotel-style candles. Under-dose a wood and the candle smells of nothing in particular; over-dose it and it turns dry, dusty and slightly bitter, without ever becoming loud. Eight percent is the point at which a wood registers clearly across a normal room without losing the calm that makes it saleable.

Vetiver and palo santo are the two to watch. Both carry a smoky, earthy facet that intensifies disproportionately, so if you are blending them into a house scent, start those at 8% and evaluate before touching the number. Sandalwood at 8% costs ₹80.43 per candle, which keeps a 200g Diwali candle comfortably inside a ₹699 to ₹799 retail band.
Oil 1kg price Per gram 16g @ 8% Candles per 1kg
Sandalwood ₹5,027 ₹5.03 ₹80.43 ≈62
Vetiver ₹5,664 ₹5.66 ₹90.62 ≈62
Palo Santo ₹6,018 ₹6.02 ₹96.29 ≈62
Saffron Cedarwood ₹6,868 ₹6.87 ₹109.89 ≈62
Sacred Sandal Ember ₹6,999 ₹7.00 ₹111.98 ≈62
₹80.43 of Sandalwood per 200g candle at 8% and 1kg pricing Buy Sandalwood
4
Floral, split in two · 8% heavy, 9% delicate
Mogra and rajnigandha are not cherry blossom
Treating "floral" as one family is the biggest single error in load setting, and it is the one that damages Indian catalogues most, because Indian ranges lean heavily on indolic white florals that behave nothing like the Western pastel florals sold alongside them.

Heavy indolic florals — 8%. Mogra, Rajnigandha, Raat Ki Rani and Jasmine are built on indole and heavy floral absolutes that behave far more like the oriental family than like a light bouquet. They project hard, they persist, and above 9% they tip into the narcotic, slightly animalic register that reads as "too much perfume" in a small Indian flat. Run them at the same 8% as woods.

Delicate florals — 9%. Japanese Cherry Blossom, Gardenia, Ylang Ylang Flower and British Rose depend on lighter, airier top structures that thin out during cure. They need more material simply to arrive intact. Nine percent is the honest starting point; some soft rose and blossom accords justify 10% after testing.
Oil Type Start Oil per candle Cost per candle
Mogra Indolic 8% 16g ₹102.72
Rajnigandha Indolic 8% 16g ₹71.36
Raat Ki Rani Indolic 8% 16g ₹108.38
Jasmine Indolic 8% 16g ₹62.77
Japanese Cherry Blossom Delicate 9% 18g ₹87.16
Gardenia Delicate 9% 18g ₹77.98
Ylang Ylang Flower Delicate 9% 18g ₹95.58
British Rose Delicate 9% 18g ₹55.22
The tell: if a floral smells heavier from the bottle than it does sweet, treat it as indolic and start at 8%. Buy Rajnigandha
5
Fresh, citrus, green & aquatic · start at 10%
Lemon, bergamot, mint, tea, marine and ozonic
This family sits at the top of the range because it loses the most material between the pouring jug and the customer's living room. Citrus terpenes and light green notes are volatile by definition — that is what makes them smell bright — and a proportion of them flashes off during the pour, another proportion migrates out during cure, and what remains has to work harder because light molecules disperse rather than linger. Ten percent is not indulgence; it is compensation for a known loss.

Load alone will not save a citrus candle. It needs the other two levers pulled at the same time: a full 14-day cure minimum, and a wick large enough that the melt pool reaches the jar wall, since a small pool releases very little of a light note. Add the oil at the temperature your wax specifies rather than at the hottest point of the melt, because flashing off top notes at the pour is the most avoidable loss in the whole process. We have covered the diagnosis in detail in why citrus fragrances fade in candles.
Oil 1kg price Per gram 20g @ 10% Candles per 1kg
Citrus Lemon ₹2,832 ₹2.83 ₹56.64 ≈50
Eucalyptus Spearmint ₹3,068 ₹3.07 ₹61.36 ≈50
Zesty Lemon ₹3,400 ₹3.40 ₹68.00 ≈50
Verbena ₹4,720 ₹4.72 ₹94.40 ≈50
Blue Ocean ₹4,956 ₹4.96 ₹99.12 ≈50
Ceiling warning: 10% is the maximum for CSI 464. Use Luxury Soy Chunks if you need headroom above it. Buy Citrus Lemon
The CSI principle
Load is not a measure of generosity. It is the dial that makes six different compositions arrive at the same perceived strength.
A customer cannot compare your vanilla to your neighbour's vanilla. What they can compare is your vanilla to your citrus — and if one of them fills the room while the other does not, they will decide the brand is unreliable long before they decide the scent is not for them.

Calibrating a whole range so every candle reads the same strength

A family starting point gets you close. Calibration is what makes a range feel deliberate. The method is deliberately narrow: test at the family starting point, adjust the outliers by ±2% only, then lock the number and stop touching it. Two percent is roughly 4g on a 200g candle, which is about the smallest change most people can reliably smell across a cured candle — anything finer is noise, and anything coarser overshoots.

1
Assign every scent its family starting loadWrite the whole range out first: scent, family, starting percentage, grams per candle. Do this on paper before you melt anything. If you cannot decide whether a scent is indolic or delicate, smell it from the bottle — if it reads heavy rather than sweet, treat it as indolic and start at 8%.
2
Check each number against your wax ceilingLuxury Soy Wax Chunks accept up to 13%, so all six starting points fit with headroom for a +2% adjustment. CSI 464 accepts up to 10%, so the fresh family is already at its ceiling and cannot be adjusted upward. If you need above 10%, change the wax rather than the ceiling.
3
Pour one candle per scent — same jar, same wax, same wickVary one thing only. Weigh oil and wax on a digital scale rather than measuring by volume, add fragrance at the temperature your wax specifies using a pen thermometer, and stir for a full two minutes so the oil is dissolved in the wax rather than sitting in it.
4
Cure 14 days, and 21 for gourmand and orientalLids on, in a closed box, at room temperature, away from sunlight. Judging a range at 48 hours produces a completely different ranking from judging it at 14 days, and the 14-day ranking is the one your customer will experience.
5
Rank the whole set blind, in one sessionSame closed room of roughly 12 x 12 ft, one candle at a time, scoring perceived strength at 30 and 120 minutes. Rank the candles against each other, not against your memory of how each should smell. Reset your nose between candles and do no more than five or six in a sitting.
6
Adjust outliers by ±2%, re-pour, then lockLeave everything mid-pack alone. Raise the quiet ones by 2%, drop the shouting ones by 2%, and re-pour and re-cure only those. Once the second round ranks evenly, the number is final — write it into the batch sheet and treat it as a specification, not a preference.
Load and wick are one decision, not two

Changing the load changes the fuel. A candle carrying 20g of oil burns differently from the same candle carrying 12g — more oil means a slightly softer, more combustible melt pool, and heavily loaded candles can drown or clog a wick that was correctly sized at a lower load. This is why the two must be tuned together, in that order: set the load first, then confirm the wick against the final load, never the reverse.

The test is simple. At the locked load, in your production jar, the melt pool should reach the jar wall within about two hours of the first burn without the flame guttering, mushrooming heavily or throwing soot. If the pool tunnels, go up one wick size. If the flame is tall, restless and sooty, go down one. Eco Candle Wicks come in Thin (C1) and Thick (C2), which is usually enough spread for a 200g container; the full wick range covers larger diameters and wooden options. Bear in mind that a fresh, high-load candle almost always needs the larger of two candidate wicks, because a light note only reaches the room once the pool is wide.

Never freestyle the load at the bench. The most expensive inconsistency in a small candle business is not a bad oil; it is two people pouring the same scent at different numbers, or the same person eyeballing "about a capful" on a busy day. Record the locked figure per scent as both a percentage and a gram weight for your standard fill — "Rajnigandha, 8%, 16.0g per 200g jar" — and put it on the batch sheet next to wax weight, pour temperature, wick size and cure date. A batch sheet is what lets you diagnose a bad run three weeks later instead of guessing, and it is what makes a second pair of hands possible at all.
Running a calibration round? A 100g bottle covers 5 to 8 test candles depending on the family, and 15g trial sizes from ₹68 cover a single pour when you are only adding one new scent.
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The 500-candle cost case for family-specific loads

Family loads are usually argued on quality. The money argument is just as strong, and it is easiest to see across a festive run. Take a 500-candle Diwali production run — 100 candles each of five 200g scents, one per family — and price it two ways at CSI 1kg fragrance pricing.

500 candles of 200g · fragrance cost, two ways
Everything at 10% versus family-specific starting loads
Scent (100 candles each) Family load Oil at 10% flat Oil at family load Saved
Vanilla Bean 6% · 12g 2,000g · ₹15,292 1,200g · ₹9,175 ₹6,117
Sandalwood 8% · 16g 2,000g · ₹10,054 1,600g · ₹8,043 ₹2,011
Rajnigandha 8% · 16g 2,000g · ₹8,920 1,600g · ₹7,136 ₹1,784
Japanese Cherry Blossom 9% · 18g 2,000g · ₹9,684 1,800g · ₹8,716 ₹968
Citrus Lemon 10% · 20g 2,000g · ₹5,664 2,000g · ₹5,664 ₹0
Total fragrance — 10.0kg · ₹49,614 8.2kg · ₹38,734 ₹10,880

The honest version of that number subtracts the wax that replaces the oil. Family loads use 1.8kg less fragrance and therefore 1.8kg more wax — 91.8kg instead of 90kg — which at roughly ₹0.60 per gram for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks adds about ₹1,080. Net saving on the run: ₹9,800, or ₹19.60 per candle, on candles that also read more consistently than the flat-10% version. That is close to the cost of 200 jars, or the entire wick budget for the run twice over.

Full materials cost · 200g candle at its family load
One representative per family, all inputs included
Candle Load Oil Wax Wick Jar Total
Citrus Lemon 10% · 20g ₹56.64 ₹108.00 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹217.74
Rajnigandha 8% · 16g ₹71.36 ₹110.20 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹234.66
Cinnamon 7% · 14g ₹74.34 ₹111.60 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹239.04
Sandalwood 8% · 16g ₹80.43 ₹110.20 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹243.73
Japanese Cherry Blossom 9% · 18g ₹87.16 ₹109.20 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹249.46
Vanilla Bean 6% · 12g ₹91.75 ₹112.80 ₹5.90 ₹47.20 ₹257.65
The components priced above: Luxury Soy Wax Chunks at ₹5,999/10kg (≈₹0.60/g) · Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) at ₹590 per 100 (₹5.90 each) · Amber Shiny Glass Jar with Black Lid at ₹236 per pack of 5 (₹47.20 each). Note that the whole spread across six families is only ₹40 per candle — the family load moves the cost far less than most makers fear, and moves the quality far more.

Treat the materials figure as roughly 30–35% of a sensible retail price. On the ₹243.73 sandalwood that suggests ₹699 to ₹799, and on the ₹217.74 citrus it suggests ₹649 to ₹729 — which is a useful reminder that family loads let you price a fresh candle slightly lower without eroding margin, because the cheap oils are exactly the ones that need the most of it.

A range does not feel premium because every candle is strong. It feels premium because no candle is a surprise.
— CandleMakingSuppliesIndia

Wax ceilings, order sizes and yield per bottle

Every number in this guide is bounded by the wax. A fragrance load ceiling is not a suggestion — it is the maximum the wax can hold in solution, and exceeding it produces sweating, poor adhesion, unpredictable burning and, counter-intuitively, a candle that often smells weaker than the same oil dosed correctly. Too much fragrance oil genuinely can make a candle smell weaker, and the load table above is designed so that you never find out the hard way.

Wax compatibility
Which wax supports which family loads
Wax Best for Load Fits which families From
Luxury Soy Wax Chunks Jar and container candles; the default production wax Up to 13% All six, with headroom for a +2% adjustment on every one ₹299 / 500g
Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 (flakes) Single-pour containers, low frosting, strong glass adhesion Up to 10% All six, but fresh sits exactly at the ceiling with no upward room ₹260 / 500g
Eco Soy CSI 400 Beginners and small batches; one-pour, no additives Standard Work to the load stated on the pack; add oil at 80–90°C and stir two minutes ₹399 / 1kg
Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 Premium tier; smoother finish and a softer, fuller throw Standard Often reads fuller at a given load, so re-calibrate rather than reusing soy numbers ₹325 / 500g
Soy Pillar Wax Pillars, moulded and designer candles Standard Pillars have no jar to hold a melt pool, so expect to sit lower than container numbers ₹300 / 500g

The practical consequence is that your wax choice decides which families you can push. If most of your range is fresh, citrus and green, Luxury Soy Chunks gives you room to go to 12% on a stubborn scent; CSI 464 does not. If most of your range is gourmand and oriental, the 10% ceiling on CSI 464 is irrelevant, because you will never approach it. Choose the wax for the catalogue you actually sell, then set loads inside it.

100g, 500g or 1kg — yield changes with the family

Because the grams per candle differ by family, so does what a bottle buys you. This is the table to consult before placing a festive order, and it is the reason a flat "100g makes six candles" rule quietly misleads people running mixed ranges.

Yield · 200g candles per bottle at each family load
What 100g, 500g and 1kg actually produce
Family Load Oil per candle 100g makes 500g makes 1kg makes
Gourmand & heavy oriental 6% 12g ≈8 candles ≈41 candles ≈83 candles
Spice 7% 14g ≈7 candles ≈35 candles ≈71 candles
Woody / heavy indolic floral 8% 16g ≈6 candles ≈31 candles ≈62 candles
Delicate floral 9% 18g ≈5 candles ≈27 candles ≈55 candles
Fresh, citrus, green & aquatic 10% 20g ≈5 candles ≈25 candles ≈50 candles

Read down the right-hand column and the ordering logic writes itself: a kilogram of a gourmand oil covers two-thirds more candles than a kilogram of a citrus oil. If you are planning a 500-candle festive run split across families, size each bottle against its own load rather than buying the same quantity of everything. For Diwali on 8 November 2026, with fragrance ordering, a 14 to 21 day cure, the production run itself, a second cure and packing all ahead of dispatch, oils need to be decided and ordered by late August or early September — which makes this the right moment to run a calibration round rather than the middle of October.

Order-sizing rule
Buy 100g of anything untested regardless of family, 500g once a scent has reordered, and 1kg only for proven sellers or a confirmed order. Then apply the yield table: 1kg of a 6% gourmand is roughly 83 candles of commitment, while 1kg of a 10% citrus is roughly 50. The same bottle size is a very different bet depending on the family.

One last note on interpretation. If a scent still reads weak at the top of its family range after a full cure and a correctly sized wick, the load is no longer the variable — the oil itself may simply be a low-impact formulation. Some oils deliver more throw per gram than others, which is a purchasing decision rather than a process one; we have compared them in which fragrance oils produce strong throw at a lower load and in the strongest hot throw oils in soy wax. Change the oil before you change the ceiling.

Why trust this guide

CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials, not finished candles. That matters especially on a load guide, because the commercially convenient advice would be to tell every maker to run everything at 10% and buy more oil. We are telling you to run five of six families below that, which sells less fragrance per candle. The reason is simple: makers whose ranges feel consistent stay in business and keep reordering, and makers whose vanilla sweats do not.

Every price, size and product link here is live CSI stock in August 2026 and links to the product page, where current pricing always takes precedence. Load figures are stated as starting points to be confirmed by your own testing in your own wax, jar and room — they are not specifications. Wax ceilings are taken from the product pages: Luxury Soy Wax Chunks up to 13% and Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 up to 10%. Cost figures are calculated, not estimated, and the inputs are named so you can check the arithmetic.

For bulk pricing, GST invoicing, MSDS and IFRA documentation, or help calibrating loads across a specific range and jar format, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.

Frequently asked questions

What fragrance load should you use for floral, woody and gourmand oils?
Use different starting points per family, then confirm each by testing. Gourmand and heavy oriental oils such as vanilla, oud, amber, tobacco and coffee start at 6%. Spice starts at 7%. Woody oils and heavy indolic florals such as mogra, rajnigandha and raat ki rani start at 8%. Delicate florals such as cherry blossom, gardenia and ylang ylang start at 9%. Fresh, citrus, green and aquatic start at 10%. On a 200g candle that is 12g, 14g, 16g, 18g and 20g of oil respectively. Stay inside your wax ceiling: Luxury Soy Wax Chunks accept up to 13% and Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 up to 10%.
Why should not every candle in a range use the same fragrance load?
Because scent families do not carry equally at the same percentage. Run everything at 10% and the vanilla will read cloying and may sweat, while the citrus is only just adequate. Run everything at 6% and the vanilla is correct while the citrus disappears. The customer does not read that as varied composition — they read it as unreliable quality, because the only thing they can compare across your range is how strong each candle feels.
How much fragrance oil goes into a 200g candle at each load?
Fragrance load is calculated on the finished candle weight, so a 200g candle at 6% takes 12g of oil and 188g of wax, at 7% 14g and 186g, at 8% 16g and 184g, at 9% 18g and 182g, and at 10% 20g and 180g. That also changes your yield per bottle: 100g of oil makes about 8 candles at 6% but only 5 at 10%, and 1kg makes about 83 at 6% against 50 at 10%.
Does a higher fragrance load always mean a stronger candle?
No. Every wax has a saturation point beyond which the oil is no longer held in solution. Past that point the excess migrates to the surface as sweating, sits in the melt pool rather than evaporating cleanly, clogs and drowns the wick, and can leave the candle smelling flatter than the same oil at a lower load. Heavy gourmand and oriental oils reach that point earliest, which is exactly why they start at the bottom of the range. The full explanation is in can too much fragrance oil make a candle smell weaker.
How do you calibrate a whole range so every candle feels equally strong?
Pour one candle per scent at its family starting point, using one jar format, one wax and one wick size. Cure 14 days, or up to 21 for gourmand and oriental. Burn the whole set in the same closed room and rank them against each other at 30 and 120 minutes. Adjust only the outliers by ±2%, which is about 4g on a 200g candle, re-pour and re-cure those, confirm the wick still reaches the jar wall within two hours, then lock the number and write it into the batch sheet.
How much does family-specific fragrance loading save on a 500-candle festive run?
On a 500-candle run of five 200g scents, running everything at 10% needs 10kg of oil costing about ₹49,614 at CSI 1kg pricing. Running the same five at their family starting points needs 8.2kg costing about ₹38,734, a fragrance saving of ₹10,880. The extra 1.8kg of wax that replaces the oil costs about ₹1,080, so the net saving is roughly ₹9,800, or ₹19.60 per candle, on candles that also smell more consistent.
Set your loads before the festive run
Six families, six starting numbers, one calibration round — and a range that finally reads the same strength end to end.
CSI fragrance oils ship in 15g, 50g, 100g, 500g and 1kg, so a full calibration round costs one bottle per scent. Pair with Luxury Soy Wax Chunks from ₹299 per 500g for a 13% ceiling, or CSI 464 from ₹260 per 500g at 10%, and Eco Candle Wicks in Thin (C1) and Thick (C2). For bulk pricing, GST invoicing and documentation, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
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Editorial standards & sources
About this guide: Written by the CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA team. Product recommendations reflect the CSI range; the family-load framework, calibration method and cost maths apply to any supplier. All load percentages are stated as starting points to be confirmed by your own testing in your own wax, jar and room, not as fixed specifications.

Figures verified August 2026: All fragrance oil prices are live CSI pricing across 15g, 50g, 100g, 500g and 1kg where those sizes are stocked; Mogra is stocked as a 100g pack at ₹642 and is costed at ₹6.42 per gram. Oil cost per candle is calculated as 1kg price ÷ 1000 × grams of oil, on a 200g finished candle. Materials cost assumes Luxury Soy Wax Chunks at ₹5,999 per 10kg (≈₹0.60 per gram), Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) at ₹590 per 100 (₹5.90 each) and an Amber Shiny Glass Jar with Black Lid at ₹236 per pack of 5 (₹47.20 each). Fragrance load ceilings are taken from the product pages: Luxury Soy Wax Chunks up to 13%, Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 up to 10%. Eco Soy CSI 400 specifies fragrance addition at 80–90°C with two minutes of stirring. Cure times of 14–21 days reflect standard practice for soy container candles. Diwali 2026 falls on 8 November 2026. Prices and availability change — the linked product pages are always authoritative.
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