I Want to Launch Five Fragrances but Only Have ₹25,000 for Raw Materials — How Should I Divide the Budget Between Wax, Fragrance, Jars, Wicks and Testing?

What ₹25,000 has to cover

Your plan is a five-fragrance launch, 200 g candles, with ₹25,000 for raw materials. That figure is yours, and this page treats it as fixed: every rupee is assigned, the lines add up exactly, and nothing is left as a vague allowance. Packaging is not inside it. CSI does not sell boxes or labels, so whatever you spend there is a separate budget you set with your own suppliers.

The worked example uses Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464, the clear 200 ml salsa jar, Eco Candle Wicks to test, and five oils chosen to cover different families: Jasmine, Roasted Coffee, Bergamot Amber, British Rose and Eucalyptus Spearmint. A suggested 8% starting load makes each candle 184 g of wax and 16 g of oil. Change the oils and the method still holds; only the fragrance line moves.

Before any splitting, decide the order of priority. Testing comes first, because a launch built on an untested oil can lose more than the oil cost. Jars and wicks come second, because they must match one another. Volume comes last. On ₹25,000, volume is what flexes.

The split, line by line

As shares, that is roughly 41% wax, 33% fragrance, 12% jars, 8% tools, 4% wicks and 2% reserve. Those percentages are an outcome of this example, not a rule; a launch in the ₹70.80 matte jar instead of the ₹29.50 salsa jar would shift several thousand rupees from volume into glass.

How sensitive the split is to the jar

Price the alternative before you fall for it. One hundred matte 200 ml jars cost 10 × ₹708.00 = ₹7,080.00, which is ₹7,080.00 − ₹2,950.00 = ₹4,130.00 more than the salsa jars. The reserve covers only ₹583.20 of that gap. The remaining ₹3,546.80 has to come from somewhere real: fewer fragrances, fewer candles per fragrance, or a later second batch. None of those is wrong, but the decision should be made on paper now, not discovered at the checkout when the jar line has already grown.

Why the wax is bought in two halves

CSI 464 costs ₹507.40 per kg in every pack, so buying 10 kg now and 10 kg after testing costs exactly what 20 kg at once would. Splitting protects you: if testing shows that a different wax suits your jar, you are holding 10 kg rather than 20. One hundred candles at 184 g use 18,400 g, which leaves 1,600 g, enough for eight more candles if you later find extra jars and oil.

Why the oil is bought in 100 g bottles

Each fragrance needs 16 g × 2 test candles + 16 g × 18 sellable candles = 320 g. Four 100 g bottles give 400 g, leaving 80 g for a retest. A 500 g bottle would be cheaper per gram for most of these oils, but it costs more cash and leaves 180 g unused per scent at launch. Roasted Coffee shows it plainly: four 100 g bottles cost 4 × ₹390.00 = ₹1,560.00, while one 500 g bottle costs ₹1,890.00. On a fixed budget, cash spent now matters more than the per-gram price of oil you will not use for months.

Why the wick line assumes the worst case

CSI publishes no wick sizing chart, so you cannot know before testing whether each oil will settle on C1 or C2. The ten tests use five of each, leaving 15 C1 and 15 C2. If all five oils need C2, production needs 90 − 15 = 75 more, bought as 50 + 20 + 10 for ₹472.00 + ₹188.80 + ₹94.40 = ₹755.20. If all five settle on C1, the same 75 cost 50 + 20 + 20 at ₹531.00, and the ₹224.20 difference moves into the reserve. Budget for the expensive outcome and enjoy the cheaper one.

How much of the budget is really testing

The test round is ten candles: one per oil with C1 and one with C2. Counted generously, it costs 10 × 184 g of wax at ₹0.5074, which is ₹933.62; the five sample bottles at ₹2,076.20; the 40 test wicks at ₹306.80; and ten jars at 10 × ₹29.50 = ₹295.00. Altogether that is ₹3,611.62, about 14% of ₹25,000. The real cost is lower, because 68 g of every sample bottle carries forward into production and the unused test wicks are reused.

Cost per candle for each of the five

A C2 wick adds ₹9.44 − ₹5.90 = ₹3.54 to any row. None of these figures includes packaging, labels, labour, shipping or GST. If you later reorder a best-seller in 500 g or 1 kg, its oil cost per candle falls, which is a reason to treat the first launch prices as your ceiling.

Buy this to test, buy this once validated

Test first, ₹12,359.00: CSI 464 10 kg ₹5,074.00; one 100 g bottle each of Jasmine ₹430.00, Roasted Coffee ₹390.00, Bergamot Amber ₹560.00, British Rose ₹342.20 and Eucalyptus Spearmint ₹354.00; 100 salsa jars ₹2,950.00; 20 C1 ₹118.00 and 20 C2 ₹188.80; tools and wick fixing ₹1,952.00. All 100 jars are bought now because the 100-pack is the cheapest per jar and every one is needed either way.

Once validated: CSI 464 10 kg ₹5,074.00; three more 100 g bottles of each approved oil, 3 × ₹2,076.20 = ₹6,228.60 if all five pass; production wicks up to ₹755.20. That half is ₹12,057.80 at most, leaving the ₹583.20 reserve, or more if an oil was dropped or C1 won.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page turns the product above into a raw-material list; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions