I Use an 8 cm Diameter Jar with Soy Wax and 8% Vanilla Fragrance — Which Wick Sizes Should I Buy for My First Burn-Test Ladder?

The buy list, line by line

Everything the first order needs, with the smallest in-stock pack that covers each line. The jar is the one item we cannot price: 8 cm is your jar, not a CSI listing. The 200 g fill is a labelled worked example; weigh your own fill line and keep the load at 8% of total candle weight, CSI's convention (16 g of oil + 184 g of wax).

From nothing, the nine-candle ladder costs ₹3,163.20 in cash (three wick packs, two 100 g bottles, two 1 kg bags, two centering packs) plus your jars. Add the double-wick arm in the same order and it is ₹4,710.60: a third bottle, a third bag and the steel holders; not one extra wick. If you already own the wax and oil, the order is the three wick packs: ₹332.40.

Why two 100 g bottles, not the cheapest fit: 100 g + 50 g (₹1,200.00) leaves 6 g, not one more candle. Two 100 g cost ₹380.00 more and leave 56 g: 3 candles, one re-poured rung if a cell splits. For fifteen, 100 + 100 + 50 g (₹1,990.00) leaves only 10 g.

Why these rungs, and why nobody can name your wick

CSI's tabbed, ready-to-use wicks are Eco C1, Eco C2 and Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made. The Eco page states no size or jar range in the text we captured; Cotton Braided's names one: "engineered for large-diameter candles exceeding 8 cm". Around them sit untabbed, cut-to-length braid and one wooden-wick listing with no widths (see "Skip" below). So in CSI terms, "adjacent sizes" means C1 → C2 → Cotton Braided, then pairs of C1 or C2. There is no sized, tabbed wick between those rungs and none above Cotton Braided. Better you know that before you order.

The geometry: 8 cm is a lot of surface for one wick

Pool area is π × r² on the inside diameter: geometry, not a burn prediction. The 0.35 cm wall is our labelled assumption, used only where a figure is read as an outside diameter.

Cotton Braided's "exceeding 8 cm" makes your jar its boundary case. The Salsa 200 ml jar pages say "Pairs well with C2 Eco Wicks" but give no body diameter: one rung's worth of evidence, not a rule. A very rough rule of thumb (about one hour per 2.5 cm of width) puts a first burn to the edge at about 3.2 hours, inside the commonly quoted 3–4 hours for a full first pool; hence 3–4 hour test sessions.

The fragrance: vanilla commonly pushes a wick up

Heavier and vanillin-rich oils are commonly linked to needing a larger wick, or to more carbon on the wick, than light florals in the same jar: a tendency, not a law, and CSI has no measured wick data for any oil. The Vanilla Bean page lists "Vanillin Content: 2.5%" and says "Wick testing is recommended based on your container size and wax type." At 8% you are inside both stated ceilings, the oil page's "Up to 10% for soy wax" and CSI 464's "Fragrance Load Up to 10%"; 8% of total weight is 8.70% of wax weight, inside 10% on either basis.

Together, that puts the likely bracket at C2 to Cotton Braided: our judgement, and the reason C1 stays in the order. A bracket only closes when the chosen wick has a documented fail on each side. If C2 wins, C1 is the fail below and a hot Cotton Braided the fail above; if Cotton Braided wins, C2 is the fail below and the pairs test what lies above. Three C1 candles cost ₹676.98 in materials: the price of knowing.

When to add the pairs: they cost no extra wicks, but six more candles (₹1,410.61 in materials plus six jars). Pour them with the ladder if you have a deadline; otherwise after burn 3, if Cotton Braided still leaves a ring. How to weigh one larger wick against two smaller is the 8.5 cm double-arm post; how far apart to set them is the double-wick spacing post.

Pack maths: bigger packs save nothing per wick

For the three tabbed rungs, CSI's price is flat per wick across every pack. Check it line by line.

So the pack decides only how much cash leaves today and how many unused wicks sit on your shelf if the ladder points elsewhere. The C2 1,000-pack (₹9,440.00) does not make a C2 candle one paisa cheaper; it makes you the owner of 991 spare C2 before you know C2 is your wick. Among CSI's tabbed wicks, only the wooden ones get cheaper per wick in bigger packs, and their "Save 25%" works out to 20%. (The cut-to-length braids are cheaper per metre at 10 m than at 5 m.)

The oil is the opposite case, and it matters more. Vanilla Bean's per gram does fall with size, from ₹8.67 at 15 g to ₹7.65 at 1 kg, but only ₹0.25 a gram between the 100 g and the 1 kg. And it is where the money goes: in the diagram above, 16 g of oil is ₹126.40 of a ₹229.20 C2 candle (55.1%), the wick ₹9.44 (4.1%). Every rung you add costs a candle. Every rung you skip can cost a wrong production order.

Pour the ladder: candles, grams, rupees

Nine candles, one variable: same wax bag, oil bottle, load, jar batch, fill, pour temperature, cure and room. Label the bases C1-a to CB-c (and 2C1-a… if you pour the pairs).

Each candle is ₹126.40 of oil plus ₹93.36 of wax plus the wick: worked examples that exclude your jar, labour, freight, packaging and GST. The dearest configuration (2 × C2) costs only ₹12.98 more per candle than the cheapest.

The approval rule

Two gates; only the second releases money. The thresholds are our judgement, readable off a photograph; commonly cited rules of thumb put pool depth at about 0.5–1 cm and flame height at about 2.5–5 cm. Fix your standard and keep it.

Why all three, and why to the bottom? Heat commonly builds as a candle burns down: the pool can deepen and the flame grow in the final third, so a wick that looks perfect on burn 3 can run too hot near the base. How far down a test candle has to go before it counts is the acceptance-depth post. Whether a first-burn tunnel that closes by burn 3 is acceptable at 8 cm is the 8 cm catch-up post. This page owns the purchase consequence: no production order until Gate 2.

From ladder to production quantity

Once a configuration passes Gate 2, size the next wick order from your own production, not from the pack list: wicks to buy = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance). The allowance covers rejects and retests; 5% is our worked-example figure. Because CSI's three tabbed rungs are flat per wick, choose packs that add up to the number, nothing more.

The configuration matters more than the pack: going from C2 single to 2 × C2 adds ₹1,982.40 a month here. And the wicks are small next to the oil (₹1,982.40 of C2 against ₹24,467.20 of vanilla). The expensive mistake is not the wrong wick; it is 200 candles of vanilla poured around it.

Reorder point and safety stock

A reorder point is daily use × your lead time + safety stock. In the worked example, 210 wicks a month is 7 a day. If your order-to-bench time is 10 days and you want a week of cover, reorder when you are down to 119 wicks. The 10 days is your figure: CSI dispatches from Pune and does not publish lead times or stock depth, so confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a big run. Cheap, small wicks justify generous safety stock of an approved wick, and none of an unapproved one. Per-SKU reorder points for several wick sizes are the 500-candles-a-month reorder post; a four-week supplier lead time is the lead-time post.

A wick from another supplier later is a new wick, not an equivalent: the same-labelled-size supplier switch post.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the ladder 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 16 g per 200 g candle and 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this ladder: Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10): one listing with no widths, so it cannot form a ladder on its own; wooden versus cotton is a separate test. Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m) and the Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82): unsized, cut to length; only worth testing if the ladder lands between rungs. Eco Candle Wicks Loose: its page describes it for "2 inch diameters", far below 8 cm.

Map of this cluster: 5501–5520

This hub owns the short answer for jar diameter → wick ladder: the buy list, the pack maths, the approval rule and the step to production. Each other post owns one purchasing decision for one jar situation.

Frequently asked questions