Can Too Much Fragrance Oil Cause Candle Tunnelling?
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Fragrance oils from ₹300 / 100g · soy wax from ₹260 / 500g15g trial sizes to 1kg bulkMade & stocked in India · ships nationwide
CSI troubleshooting guides
Yes, too much fragrance oil can tunnel a candle. The part that fails is the wick, not the wax.
★★★★★
"…strong fragrance in cold throw and hot throw and you can go for the minimum percentage in candle still it will give amazing smell…"
Emma BecharaJun 2026
British Rose Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Quality of fragrance is very good. Cold through and hot though both are perfect."
Priyanka PurohitVerified buyer · Sep 2026
Lavender Fragrance Oil
★★★★☆
"Fragrance is awesome. Hot throw is also very good after burn candle."
AkanshaVerified buyer · Dec 2025
Lavender Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Good quality wood fragrance oil with a warm, long-lasting scent and strong performance in candles."
Payal PatelVerified buyer · Mar 2026
Woody Oud Fragrance Oil
★★★★☆
"Quality of the wick is good for jar candles, team can work on the pricing and delivery timelines."
Monika DeepVerified buyer · Oct 2025
Eco Candle Wicks
★★★★★
"One of the best wax for container Candles. Easy to work with, especially if you are a beginner."
ThenirvaofficialVerified buyer · Nov 2025
Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464
★★★★★
"…strong fragrance in cold throw and hot throw and you can go for the minimum percentage in candle still it will give amazing smell…"
Emma BecharaJun 2026
British Rose Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Quality of fragrance is very good. Cold through and hot though both are perfect."
Priyanka PurohitVerified buyer · Sep 2026
Lavender Fragrance Oil
★★★★☆
"Fragrance is awesome. Hot throw is also very good after burn candle."
AkanshaVerified buyer · Dec 2025
Lavender Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Good quality wood fragrance oil with a warm, long-lasting scent and strong performance in candles."
Payal PatelVerified buyer · Mar 2026
Woody Oud Fragrance Oil
★★★★☆
"Quality of the wick is good for jar candles, team can work on the pricing and delivery timelines."
Monika DeepVerified buyer · Oct 2025
Eco Candle Wicks
★★★★★
"One of the best wax for container Candles. Easy to work with, especially if you are a beginner."
ThenirvaofficialVerified buyer · Nov 2025
Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464
Reviews collected and published through Judge.me on candlemakingsuppliesindia.store. They are general reviews of the products named, not of this guide. One longer review is shortened with an ellipsis; wording is otherwise unedited.
✓ Stated fragrance ceilings published per wax✓ 92 fragrance oils in stock✓ MSDS & IFRA documentation on request
Candle Troubleshooting · Tunnelling
Yes — and not for the reason most makers assume. The wax does not stop melting because there is oil in it. The wick stops working because it is drawing oil instead of wax. This page follows that chain link by link, shows you how to confirm it in your own batch, and costs it out.
10% & 13%
the stated ceilings for CSI 464 and Luxury Soy Chunks · working above them is what starts the chain · CSI live pricing, September 2026
Quick answers — read this first
Can too much fragrance oil cause tunnelling? Yes. Above the ceiling your wax states, the surplus oil does not bind into the wax. It migrates, the wick starts drawing oil rather than molten wax, the flame weakens, and a weak flame cannot open a melt pool to the glass. That is tunnelling.
What are the ceilings?Up to 13% for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, up to 10% for Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464. These are the wax manufacturer's formulation limits — how much oil that wax is built to hold — not regulatory limits.
How do I know over-loading is my cause and not a small wick? Look for an oily film or beads on the surface, separation in the jar, a wick that drowns or self-extinguishes, and the same wick behaving normally at a lower load. Then pour the identical recipe at two loads and burn them side by side.
Does more oil make a stronger candle? Past the ceiling, no — it makes a weaker one. You pay more per candle and get less scent in the room, because the pool never opens.
The short answer
Yes, over-loading can cause tunnelling: past the stated ceiling — up to 13% on Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, up to 10% on Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 — the surplus oil never enters solution.
The mechanism is the wick, not the wax: unbound oil migrates into the braid, the wick feeds on oil instead of wax, the flame runs low or drowns, and a low flame cannot melt out to the glass wall.
Confirm it before you change anything: oily film or beads, separation in the jar, a drowning wick, and the same wick working fine at a lower load. Then pour the identical recipe at two loads and compare. The general diagnosis is in why is my candle tunnelling and the repair in how to fix candle tunnelling.
The chain from over-load to stalled melt pool. Each link is observable: surplus oil you can see as beads or film, migration you can see as separation, a wick that drowns, a flame that runs low, and a pool that stops short of the glass. Because every link is visible, the cause is diagnosable at home — and the last two lines are the test that settles it.
Can too much fragrance oil cause a candle to tunnel?
Yes, it can — and the mechanism runs through the wick, not the wax. Every wax has a stated maximum fragrance load: up to 13% for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and up to 10% for Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464. Those are the wax manufacturer's formulation limits — the quantity of oil the wax is built to hold in solution — not regulatory limits. Work above them and the surplus does not bind. It separates during cooling and cure, sweats to the surface, and collects around the one absorbent thing in the jar: the wick. From that point the braid is drawing a fuel it was never sized for. Fragrance oil does not burn like wax — the flame runs low, gutters, and in the worst case drowns and puts itself out. A weak flame cannot melt outwards. It melts a narrow column straight down and leaves a wall of unmelted wax against the glass, which is tunnelling. The general diagnosis belongs to why is my candle tunnelling, the repair to how to fix candle tunnelling, and the cause-by-cause map to the tunnelling troubleshooting hub. This page answers only the load question — and the answer is that more oil past the ceiling gives you a weaker candle, not a stronger one.
One line: past the wax's stated ceiling the surplus oil migrates to the wick, the wick draws oil instead of wax, the flame weakens, and the melt pool stalls before it reaches the glass.
Every load change is a wick re-test, and a wick re-test is the cheapest insurance in candle making. Eco Candle Wicks from ₹59 for 10 in Thin (C1) at ₹5.90 each and Thick (C2) at ₹9.44 each, or Performance Wooden Wicks at ₹590 for 10 when you want a wider pool from a lower flame.
The wax is not refusing to melt. The wick has stopped being a wick.
Tunnelling has several possible causes and most have nothing to do with fragrance: an undersized wick for the jar diameter, a first burn cut short, a draught, a jar too wide for a single wick. Those are the usual suspects, and the general tunnelling diagnosis and the troubleshooting hub work through them properly. This page is about the one cause makers most often rule out by mistake, because it does not look like a burn problem at all: a fragrance load above what the wax can hold.
It gets ruled out because the connection between "I added more oil" and "the candle burned a hole down the middle" is not obvious — nobody expects a recipe change made on Monday to surface as a burn fault the following Sunday. But the chain is short and every link in it is physical.
1
Surplus oil — the wax stops taking it inWax holds fragrance oil in solution the way water holds sugar: freely up to a point, then not at all. The stated ceiling is that point, measured and published by the wax manufacturer. Below it, the oil is genuinely dissolved into the wax matrix and behaves as part of the fuel. Above it, the extra grams are simply sitting in the melt, suspended, waiting for somewhere to go. Nothing warns you at the pour. A 200g candle at 14% in a 10% wax looks exactly like a 200g candle at 10% while it is still liquid in the pitcher.
2
Migration — the surplus goes looking for a surfaceAs the candle cools, the wax crystallises and the crystal structure squeezes out what it cannot hold. Over the following days of cure, that surplus keeps moving. It arrives at the top surface as an oily sheen or as small beads, it collects at the glass as visible separation, and it wicks into any absorbent material it touches. There is exactly one absorbent material in a container candle, running from the base of the jar to the top of the wax.
3
The wick draws oil instead of waxA wick is a capillary pump with a designed flow rate. It is engineered to lift molten wax of a particular viscosity at a particular rate to feed a flame of a particular size. Fragrance oil is a different liquid with a different viscosity and a different burning behaviour, and the braid does not discriminate — it lifts what is available. When the surrounding wax has shed oil into the braid, the wick delivers a fuel mixture the flame was never sized for. This is the link most makers miss, and it is the one that turns a recipe error into a burn fault.
4
The flame weakensFragrance oil does not vaporise and combust at the flame the way soy- or paraffin-derived hydrocarbons do. The flame sits low, gutters without a draught, sometimes crackles, and in bad cases sinks into its own small pool and goes out within the first hour. Makers describe this as "the wick keeps drowning" — and a drowning wick straight after a load increase is the strongest single signal that the load, not the wick size, is what changed.
5
The melt pool stalls — and that is tunnellingPool width is a function of how much heat the flame delivers and for how long. A flame running at a fraction of its designed output cannot push the melt front out to the glass, so it melts vertically instead — straight down the middle, leaving a rim of solid wax against the wall. Once that rim forms on the first burn it tends to stay: the tunnel deepens, the flame drops below the surrounding wax, and the candle is finished long before the wax is. What a healthy pool should look like, and how long it should take, is set out in why isn't my candle creating a full melt pool and how long a candle should take to reach one.
Why this looks like a wick fault when it is a load fault. Every observable symptom belongs to the wick: small flame, drowning, no pool, a tunnel. So the maker orders a thicker wick, and sometimes a thicker wick papers over the problem for a burn or two. But the oily film comes back, the separation is still in the jar, and the candle that now burns has a hot, sooty flame because it is over-wicked for its wax. You have treated the symptom and kept the cause. Drop the load to the stated ceiling first, then size the wick to the wax you actually have.
There is one more consequence worth naming, because it is what customers complain about. A stalled pool is a small pool, and the melt pool surface is the area fragrance evaporates from. Less surface means less scent in the room. So the over-loaded candle contains more fragrance oil than the correctly loaded one and delivers less of it — the whole argument is set out in can too much fragrance oil make a candle smell weaker, and the throw side of it in which oils give the strongest hot throw in soy wax.
The ceilings, stated correctly
Two numbers matter here and they are not the same number. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks are rated up to 13%. Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 is rated up to 10%. Both are container waxes, both are soy, and they differ by three percentage points — which is why the "soy takes 10%" rule of thumb circulating in maker groups causes trouble in both directions. It tells the Chunks user to leave three points on the table, and it tells nobody anything useful about any other wax.
Say what these figures are precisely, because the wording matters. They are wax-manufacturer formulation limits: the maximum quantity of fragrance oil that particular wax has been formulated to hold in solution and still burn as designed. They are not regulatory limits and they are not a safety certification. Your fragrance supplier's own documentation separately states usage guidance per application; CSI supplies MSDS and IFRA paperwork on request. Working above the formulation limit is not illegal. It is simply the thing that starts the chain on this page.
Stated ceilings · CSI container waxes
What 200g of finished candle looks like at each wax's ceiling
Read that table as a hard stop, not a target to creep past. The most common over-loading story we hear on WhatsApp is not a maker deciding to pour at 18%; it is a maker on CSI 464 who read "13%" somewhere, applied it to the wrong wax, and is three points over without realising anything changed. The ceiling belongs to the wax you bought, not to the category "soy". If you run both waxes, write the ceiling on the storage bin in marker pen.
The safety framing, stated precisely
The 13% and 10% figures on this page are the wax manufacturer's stated maximum fragrance loads — formulation limits describing how much oil each specific wax will hold in solution. They are not a regulatory claim, not a safety certification, and not a substitute for your fragrance supplier's documentation, which states usage guidance per application. CSI supplies GST invoicing, MSDS and IFRA documentation on request via WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
One qualifier, because it protects you from over-correcting. Being inside the ceiling does not guarantee a candle will not tunnel. Ceiling compliance removes one cause; it does not remove undersized wicks, over-wide jars, short first burns or draughts. If you drop to 10% and the tunnel persists unchanged, the load was never your problem — go to how to fix candle tunnelling, and check whether a hard wax or, on soy specifically, the wax and vessel combination is the real cause, rather than keep adjusting the recipe.
How to confirm over-loading is your cause
Four signs point at load rather than at wick size. None of them is conclusive alone; together they are close to diagnostic, and the test at the end of this section settles it.
1 — An oily film or beads on the cold surface. Run a fingertip across the top of a cured, unlit candle. A correctly loaded soy candle feels dry and slightly waxy; an over-loaded one leaves a faint slick, or shows droplets sitting in the surface. Beads that reappear within a day of being wiped away are surplus oil still coming out of the wax, not residue from the pour.
2 — Separation visible in the jar. Look through the glass at the sides and base. Streaks, a darker translucent layer, or a wet-looking band where wax meets glass all indicate oil out of solution — the same fault described in why fragrance oil separates from candle wax, seen from the burn side rather than the appearance side.
3 — A wick that drowns or self-extinguishes. The flame sits low, does not recover after trimming, and often goes out inside the first hour with a wet-looking wick standing in a shallow puddle. An undersized wick gives you a small flame and a narrow pool, but it usually stays lit. A wick that repeatedly puts itself out is behaving like a wick fed the wrong fuel.
4 — The same wick works at a lower load. This is the strongest sign of the four. If a jar poured last month at 8% with the identical wick, wax and vessel burned to the wall in under three hours, and this month's jar at 14% tunnels, the wick did not change. The load did. Anything that stays constant across two batches cannot be the cause of a difference between them.
Sign four is also the shape of the confirming test: rather than reasoning from memory about last month's batch, pour the comparison deliberately and read it in a fortnight.
The two-load test · the only way to be certain
Pour the identical recipe at two loads and change nothing else
Hold constant
Change
Read at day 14
Wax product and batch, oil, jar, wick size, add temperature, stir time, pour temperature, cure conditions, burn room
Fragrance load only — three jars at the wax's stated ceiling, three jars four points above it
Time to full pool, pool width at 3 hours, flame height, surface film, whether the wick stays lit
1
Pour six identical jars on the same dayThree at the ceiling, three above it. On CSI 464 in a 200g fill that is three jars at 10% — 20g of oil to 180g of wax — and three at 14%, which is 28g of oil to 172g of wax. Weigh both components on a weighing scale at ₹354; load is a weight percentage and millilitres will not give you a repeatable number.
2
Use one wax batch, one oil bottle, one wick sizeNot "the same wick type" — the same size from the same pack. Not "464" — the bag currently open. Same jar at ₹47.20 so the diameter is identical, same reading on the same pen thermometer at ₹354, same timed two-minute stir. Add-temperature guidance is in the temperature guide.
3
Cure both sets identically, for the full periodLids on, closed carton, room temperature, out of sunlight, at least 14 days — longer for woody, gourmand and oriental oils, as set out in the cure-time guide. Migration needs days to become visible, so inspect the surfaces at day 7 and day 14 before lighting anything.
4
Burn one from each set side by side for three hoursSame table, same room, no draught, nothing else lit. Photograph both at 60, 120 and 180 minutes, measure pool width against the jar's internal diameter, and note flame height, guttering, and whether either wick goes out on its own.
5
Read the result — there are only three outcomesOnly the high-load jar tunnels: the load is your cause. Drop to the ceiling. Both tunnel: the wick was undersized for the jar all along and the load was never the issue — go to the general diagnosis and the wick guide by diameter. Neither tunnels: the fault in your production batch is elsewhere, most often a first burn cut short or a draught, and the troubleshooting hub covers the rest.
The test costs about ₹1,600 in materials at CSI live pricing — six jars at ₹47.20, six Eco Candle Wicks Thick (C2) at ₹9.44, about 1.06 kg of CSI 464 at ₹0.5074 per gram, and 144 g of Sandalwood Fragrance Oil at ₹5.03 per gram on 1 kg pricing. Set against the value of a production batch, that is not a cost. It is the cheapest thing on this page.
The CSI principle
Past the ceiling, more oil buys you a weaker candle. You pay more per unit and less scent reaches the room.
The oil in the jar is not the product. The oil in the air is. A stalled pool is a small evaporating surface, so the over-loaded candle carries more fragrance and delivers less of it — while costing more to make and failing quality control more often. There is no version of this trade that works in your favour.
A load change is a wick re-test — even inside the ceiling
This part catches experienced makers, because it is true even when you have done nothing wrong. Fragrance load changes the fuel, and the wick is sized to the fuel. Moving from 6% to 10% on a 200g candle takes you from 12g of oil and 188g of wax to 20g and 180g. Both are legitimate loads on CSI 464 and neither is over the ceiling — but you have changed what the wick lifts by four percentage points of the candle's mass, and the wick that gave a clean full pool at 6% may run low, or run hot, at 10%.
Different oils compound this: heavier, more viscous bases behave differently in the braid from thin citrus and aquatic compositions, which is one reason load recommendations differ by fragrance family. Treat wax, oil, jar diameter and load as a single recipe — change any one of the four and the wick is unverified until you re-test it.
The rule, in one line
If the load moves by more than two percentage points, or the oil changes, or the jar diameter changes, or the wax changes — burn three test jars before the production run. Three wick sizes, one jar diameter, three burns of three hours each. It is roughly nine hours of unattended bench time and it is the difference between a batch you can sell and a batch you re-melt.
1
Cotton braid · the default test set
Eco Candle Wicks — Thin (C1) and Thick (C2)
Two sizes in one product, which is exactly what a re-test needs: change the wick and hold everything else. Thin (C1) suits narrower jars and lower loads; Thick (C2) is where you go when the load has risen and the pool is stopping short. The per-wick price is flat across every pack size, so there is no penalty for testing at ten.
Worth testing when a cotton braid keeps stalling in a wide jar: a wooden wick presents a linear burning edge rather than a point, which tends to open the pool outwards sooner at a lower flame height. They cost several times what cotton costs, so treat them as a considered upgrade for a specific vessel — and note that a wooden wick will not rescue a candle that is over its ceiling. Fix the load first; then choose the wick.
You pay once for oil the wax cannot hold, and again for the batch it ruins.
Work the numbers on a 200g container candle in CSI 464, stated ceiling 10%, wax at ₹5,074 per 10 kg or ₹0.5074 per gram. At the ceiling the candle carries 20g of oil and 180g of wax; at 14% it carries 28g and 172g — eight grams more oil, eight grams less wax. That extra oil is the first cost, offset very slightly by the wax you no longer use.
First cost · the surplus oil itself
Four points over the ceiling on a 200g CSI 464 candle, net of the wax displaced
So on Sandalwood you have spent an extra ₹2,170.80 across sixty candles to buy oil that the wax was never going to hold. That money is gone whether or not the batch works. Now price the second cost: the batch itself. Sixty 200g candles at 14% in CSI 464, poured into Amber Shiny Glass Jars with Black Lids at ₹47.20 each with Eco Thick (C2) wicks at ₹9.44 each, is ₹8,450.40 of oil, ₹5,236.37 of wax, ₹2,832.00 of glass and ₹566.40 of wick — ₹17,085.17 of materials.
Second cost · the batch at risk
A 60-candle run, and what each decision costs against it
Line
Cost
Recoverable?
Note
Fragrance oil, 1,680 g at ₹5.03
₹8,450.40
No
Re-melting does not remove oil that is already over the ceiling
Wax, 10,320 g at ₹0.5074
₹5,236.37
No
Diluting to the ceiling means buying more wax, not reusing this
Glass, 60 jars at ₹47.20
₹2,832.00
Yes, with labour
Cleanable and re-pourable
Wicks, 60 at ₹9.44
₹566.40
No
Oil-soaked braid is not reusable
Batch total
₹17,085.17
₹2,832 of it
Roughly ₹14,253 unrecoverable if the batch fails
The two-load test instead
₹1,599.97
—
Six jars, answered in 14 days
A nine-jar wick re-test
₹2,375.21
—
Three wick sizes at the ceiling load, three burns each
That is the whole commercial argument in two tables: the surplus oil costs money up front, and then it puts a five-figure batch at risk to buy a candle that performs worse than the cheaper one. Add the costs a spreadsheet does not show — returns, replacement units, the customer who does not reorder, the festive deadline you now cannot hit. If you are pricing this into a production plan, the arithmetic sits alongside how to price candles in India in 2026 and how much fragrance oil a candle business needs.
We sell fragrance oil. We are telling you to use less of it, because the wax will not hold it and the candle gets worse.
— CandleMakingSuppliesIndia
That is not modesty, it is arithmetic on our side of the counter too. A maker who over-loads buys more oil this month and stops ordering by the fourth, because the candles tunnel and the customers complain. A maker whose candles burn to the glass reorders wax, oil, wicks and jars every month for years. The second customer is worth more to us than the first — which is why this page argues against the immediate sale.
The fix, in order
Four steps, and the order matters more than any individual step. Doing them out of sequence is how makers end up over-wicked and still sweating oil.
1
Drop to the stated ceilingNot to "about 10%" — to the figure printed for the wax in front of you. Up to 13% on Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, up to 10% on CSI 464. Weigh it. If your recipe is written in millilitres, convert it to grams today, because oils differ in density and a millilitre figure is not a repeatable load.
2
Re-test the wick at the new loadYou changed the fuel, so the wick is unverified. Burn three jars with three wick sizes — Eco C1 and C2 and, in a wide vessel, a wooden wick — and keep the one that reaches the glass in two to three hours with no soot and no mushrooming. The method belongs to how to fix candle tunnelling and the wick-size guide; do not shortcut it.
3
Cure fully before you judge anythingFourteen days minimum for a soy container candle, up to 21 for woody, gourmand and oriental families. Migration takes days to appear, so a surface that looks clean at 48 hours proves nothing. Cure with lids on, in a closed carton, away from sunlight, and inspect at day 7 and day 14.
4
Re-judge the candle, not the recipeLight it in a closed room with no draught and let the first burn run until the pool reaches the wall. If it burns clean to the glass, write the recipe down: wax and batch, oil and size, load in both percent and grams, add temperature, timed stir, pour temperature, jar diameter, wick size, cure days. An undocumented fix is not a fix, it is a good week.
One honest caveat. Dropping the load will not un-tunnel candles already poured — you can salvage the glass and burn the rest yourself with a foil collar, but they are not sale stock. The fix applies from the next pour onwards, which is exactly why the two-load test belongs before a production run rather than after one. Unsure which wick to test against a specific jar diameter and load? Send us the internal diameter and your recipe on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Why trust this guide
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials, not finished candles. On this page in particular, the commercially convenient advice would be "add more oil". We sell 92 fragrance oils. We are telling you to stay at or below the ceiling stated for your wax, because past that point the oil does not bind, the wick draws oil instead of wax, and the candle tunnels — and a maker whose candles tunnel stops reordering.
Every price, pack size and ceiling quoted here is taken from live CSI stock in September 2026 and links to the product page, where current pricing and specification always take precedence. The 13% and 10% figures are the fragrance loads stated for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 respectively; they are wax formulation limits, not regulatory limits, and they are not interchangeable between waxes. This page deliberately does not repeat the general tunnelling diagnosis (why is my candle tunnelling), the repair procedure (how to fix candle tunnelling) or the cause-by-cause map (the tunnelling troubleshooting hub) — duplicating them here would only make all four harder to keep accurate.
For bulk pricing, GST invoicing, MSDS and IFRA documentation, or help matching a wick to a specific jar diameter and fragrance load, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Frequently asked questions
Can too much fragrance oil cause candle tunnelling?
Yes. Above the wax's stated ceiling the surplus oil does not dissolve into the wax. It migrates during cooling and cure, collects in the wick, and the wick then draws oil rather than molten wax. Fragrance oil does not feed a flame the way wax does, so the flame runs low or drowns, and a weak flame cannot push the melt front out to the glass. It melts a narrow column downwards instead, which is tunnelling. The failure point is the wick, not the wax.
What is the maximum fragrance load I can use?
It depends on the wax. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks are rated by the manufacturer to up to 13%, and Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 to up to 10%. These are wax formulation limits — how much oil that wax will hold in solution — not regulatory limits. Work to the number stated for the wax you actually bought, and separately follow your fragrance supplier's usage documentation, which CSI provides on request.
How do I tell over-loading apart from an undersized wick?
Look for the four signs together: an oily film or beads on the cold surface, visible separation through the glass, a wick that drowns or self-extinguishes rather than merely burning small, and the same wick working fine at a lower load. An undersized wick usually stays lit with a small flame and a clean surface. To be certain, pour the identical recipe at two loads on the same day and burn them side by side after a full 14-day cure.
Will more fragrance oil make my candle smell stronger?
Do I need to re-test the wick if I change the load but stay inside the ceiling?
Yes. Going from 6% to 10% on a 200g candle moves you from 12g of oil to 20g — a four-point change in the composition of the fuel the wick lifts. Both loads are legal on CSI 464, but the wick that gave a clean full pool at the lower load may run low or run hot at the higher one. Treat wax, oil, jar diameter and load as one recipe: change any of the four and the wick is unverified until you burn three test jars.
Can I rescue candles that have already tunnelled from over-loading?
Not as sale stock. Re-melting does not remove oil that is over the ceiling, and diluting the batch back down means buying fresh wax rather than reusing what you have. You can recover the glass with cleaning labour, and you can burn the jars at home with a foil collar, but the wax, oil and wicks are spent. On a 60-candle run at 14% that is roughly ₹14,253 unrecoverable against about ₹1,600 for the two-load test that would have caught it.
Hold the ceiling, re-test the wick
More oil past the ceiling is a weaker candle at a higher price. Every time.
Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 from ₹260/500g with a stated 10% ceiling, Luxury Soy Wax Chunks from ₹299/500g at 13%, Eco Candle Wicks from ₹59 for 10 in Thin (C1) and Thick (C2), Performance Wooden Wicks from ₹590 for 10, and 92 fragrance oils in 15g, 50g, 100g, 500g and 1kg. Message us for bulk pricing, GST invoicing and documentation.
About this guide: Written by the CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA team. Product recommendations reflect the CSI range; the mechanism, the two-load test and the cost arithmetic apply to any supplier. This page covers one cause only — fragrance load. The general tunnelling diagnosis, the repair procedure and the cause-by-cause map are covered in the linked sibling guides and are deliberately not repeated here.
Customer reviews: The six reviews at the top of this page are genuine, published Judge.me reviews left by CSI customers on their product pages. They are general reviews of the products named — fragrance oils, wicks and wax — not reviews of this article or of a tunnelling fix. Names, star ratings, dates and products are as recorded by Judge.me, and the "Verified buyer" badge appears only where Judge.me recorded a verified purchase; the Emma Bechara review is shown without a badge for that reason. One longer review is shortened with an ellipsis and is otherwise unedited.
Figures verified September 2026 · CSI live pricing: Fragrance load ceilings are the wax manufacturers' stated maximums — up to 13% for Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and up to 10% for Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 — and are formulation limits, not regulatory limits. Wax: Luxury Soy Wax Chunks ₹299/500g and ₹5,999/10kg; Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 ₹260/500g and ₹5,074/10kg (₹0.5074/g). Wicks: Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) ₹59/10, ₹118/20, ₹295/50, ₹590/100, ₹2,950/500 (₹5.90 each) and Thick (C2) ₹188.80/20, ₹472/50, ₹944/100, ₹4,720/500 (₹9.44 each; the 10-wick C2 pack was out of stock on the pull date); Performance Wooden Wicks ₹590/10, ₹2,360/50, ₹4,130/100. Glass: Amber Shiny Glass Jar with Black Lid ₹236 per pack of 5 (₹47.20 each). Tools: Candle Making Weighing Scale ₹354, Pen Thermometer ₹354, CSI Pro Mixer ₹349. Fragrance oils at 1 kg pricing: British Rose ₹3,068 (₹3.07/g), Woody Oud ₹4,531.20 (₹4.53/g), Sandalwood ₹5,026.80 (₹5.03/g), Lavender ₹5,221 (₹5.22/g), Vanilla Bean ₹7,646 (₹7.65/g). All per-candle costs assume a 200g finished candle. The 60-candle batch total of ₹17,085.17 is 1,680g of Sandalwood, 10,320g of CSI 464, 60 jars and 60 Thick (C2) wicks; the two-load test at ₹1,599.97 is six jars, six C2 wicks, 1,056g of CSI 464 and 144g of Sandalwood; the nine-jar wick re-test at ₹2,375.21 is nine jars, nine 200g candles at 10% and three each of C1, C2 and wooden wicks. Cure periods of 14–21 days reflect standard practice for soy container candles. 92 fragrance oils were live in the Fragrance Oils collection on the pull date. Prices and availability change — the linked product pages are always authoritative.
