How Do I Build a Commercial Wick Procurement System from Sample-Size Selection → Burn-Test Ladder → Full-Life Testing → Fragrance-Specific Approval → Bulk Purchase → Incoming QC → Reorder Point?

The system on one page

The series behind this post answers one wick purchase question at a time. This capstone joins them into one flow for one worked brand and hands each gate to the post that owns its depth. The test sequence underneath the gates (diameter, wax, oil and load, wick, pool, flame, glass, full life) is the commercial wick system post; this page is the purchasing layer on top of it.

Two rules hold the gates together. A gate that has not passed never buys the next gate's quantity: no production wicks before gate 4, no second production order before gate 6 has released the first. And a change anywhere in the build sends that build back to gate 2: a new jar batch with a different inside diameter, a wax or oil change, a load change, a wick supplier change. How to run those changes as a controlled process across the whole business is the change-control system post.

Gates 1 and 2: sample breadth and the ladder

For a 7 cm jar on CSI's range, "sample breadth" is short to answer: CSI's sized, tabbed wicks are Eco C1, Eco C2 and Cotton Braided, with nothing in between and nothing above. So gate 1 buys all three, in the counts gate 2 will consume. Four oils × 3 candles = 12 wicks per rung.

Why all three for a 7 cm jar, when Cotton Braided's page describes it for candles "exceeding 8 cm"? Because a bracket closes only when the chosen wick has a documented fail on each side, and vanilla-rich oils such as Vanilla Bean (its page: "Vanillin Content: 2.5%") are commonly linked to needing a wick step up from light florals. A rung you expect to fail is still evidence. How many sizes to sample around an expected centre in general is the sample-breadth post.

The 42 g of oil left per oil is three more candles: exactly one re-poured rung if a cell splits. One ladder candle costs about ₹238.66 in Lavender on C2 and ₹271.22 in Vanilla Bean on Cotton Braided, jar included and before labour, freight, packaging and GST; the wick is the smallest line on every candle. Gates 1 and 2 together are ₹10,885.60. Pour each oil's nine candles from one pot, same day, same wax bag and jar batch; the jar page says "Safe for hot pour up to 85°C" and CSI 464's says "Pour Temperature 80°C – 90°C", so pour at 80–85°C. How deep each rung's count should go, with screen, confirm and spare wicks, is the per-rung depth post.

Gates 3 and 4: full life, then a fragrance-specific approval

Gate 3 is time, not money. After burn 3, keep burning the three candles of each oil's leading rung (and its neighbours if the call is close) in sessions long enough to reach a full pool, about 2.8 hours on the very rough one-hour-per-2.5-cm rule for a 7 cm jar, until about 1 cm of wax is left. Heat commonly builds in the final third, so a rung that looks right at burn 3 can still fail low in the jar; how far down a test candle has to go is the acceptance-depth post. Gate 3 passes only when all three candles pass; one good candle is not evidence, for the reasons in the three-candle post.

The table is an illustration of how the result is recorded, not a prediction for your candles. Gate 4 turns each pass into a row of the approved wick matrix: jar (with the inside diameter you measured, about 6.3 cm on our wall assumption), fill, wax, oil, load, wick, count, fixture, evidence ID and date, plus retest triggers. That row is what gate 5 is allowed to buy for; the layout is the approved wick matrix post. Notice what the matrix does not say: that "C2 is the 7 cm wick". It says C2 is approved for three particular oils at 8% in this jar and this wax. A fifth oil starts at gate 2.

Gate 5: the first bulk purchase

Only approved rows count. Wicks a month per SKU = Σ (units × wicks per candle) over its approved rows × (1 + allowance); with a 5% allowance (our worked-example figure) that is Eco C2 (120 + 100 + 100) × 1.05 = 336 and Cotton Braided 80 × 1.05 = 84. How to split units by sales mix when several oils share a jar is the sales-mix split post. The first order adds 14 days of safety stock (157 C2, 40 Cotton Braided at 11.2 and 2.8 a day) and 20 retained wicks per SKU.

How much testing should stand behind an order of a given size is its own question: at a few hundred wicks the four approvals above are enough; a 5,000-wick commitment would also want a production-lot confirm, as the testing-scope post sets out. And keep the wicks in proportion. A month of materials for the worked brand, for scale:

Wicks are 4.5% of the month. That is the whole argument of this series in one number: the wick is cheap, so the system is not there to save money on wicks; it is there so that ₹91,886.72 of jars, wax and oil is never poured around a wick that was not approved for it.

Gate 6: incoming QC on every delivery

A wick approval is for a wick as it was delivered. Gate 6 checks that each new delivery is the same thing, before it reaches production, and keeps a sample of it for later. CSI publishes no wick specification or lot data, so your reference is your own retained wicks; ask on WhatsApp whether packs in one order share a lot and record the answer.

Gate 6 is also why the lead time you plan with is longer than the supplier's: the days a delivery spends in receiving are days you cannot pour from it. Add them to gate 7's lead time.

Gate 7: the reorder point, and the loops back

Reorder point = daily use × (lead time + safety days). With a 10-day order-to-bench time (a worked-example figure; CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times, so ask on WhatsApp and log your own) and 14 days of safety stock: Eco C2 11.2 × 24 ≈ 269, Cotton Braided 2.8 × 24 ≈ 68, both rounded up. Trigger on stock on hand plus stock on order.

Re-run the numbers whenever volume moves, and before a festive month. Per-SKU reorder points from recorded consumption rather than plan are the reorder-point post; what to hold when the supplier's lead time is four weeks, or slips to six, is the lead-time post.

The loops back to the ladder

The system is a line with two returns. A rung that fails at gate 2 or 3 goes back for a re-pour or the next rung, using the spare oil and wicks gates 1 and 2 deliberately left. And any change to an approved build (a jar batch with a different inside diameter, a new wax or oil lot that behaves differently, a load change, a wick supplier change, even at "the same size") sends that build back to gate 2, while the builds it doesn't touch keep ordering. The matrix row goes to pending, its units leave the roll-up, and gate 5's next order shrinks accordingly. That is change control in its purchasing form; the full process is the change-control post.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the system needs them, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip: Eco C1 beyond the gate 1 pack (no approved row in the example); the 1,000-packs; Performance Wooden Wicks unless a wooden line goes through its own gates; and the Steel Wick Holder for the ladder, where centering devices do the job for less.

Frequently asked questions