I Want to Make Corporate Gift Candles With Custom Fragrances — What Materials Should I Test Before Promising a 1,000-Piece Order?

What you are really promising

A corporate client asks for 1,000 gift candles with a fragrance created for their brand. The temptation is to agree a price and a date at the first meeting, then work out the formula. That order of events is where most corporate jobs go wrong. Once the quote is signed, every problem you find later, whether a blend that soots, a jar colour you cannot get in volume or a scent that shifts colour in storage, has to be solved under a deadline and at your own cost.

The safer order is to test enough to know three things before quoting: the candle works, the client has approved a physical sample, and the materials exist in the quantity you need. The checks below cover each, with a worked custom blend and the full cost of the order.

Building and measuring the custom fragrance

A custom fragrance for a candle maker usually means a blend of two or three finished fragrance oils, not a new oil. For this example, the client wants something warm and polished, and you propose Bergamot Amber with Woody Oud. Bergamot Amber's page describes bergamot and citrus on top, amber with soft floral in the heart and woody musk with vanilla at the base, with a soy range of 6 to 10%. Woody Oud has a citrus and spice top, oud and patchouli in the middle and woods, amber and musk at the base, also 6 to 10% in soy.

The product is a 150 g candle in the clear apothecary jar with a golden lid. Always fix the total load before you split it. At a suggested starting load of 8%, the candle holds 12 g of oil and 138 g of wax. The ratio then divides the 12 g, and nothing else changes.

The oil cost barely moves across the three, so choose the ratio by how it smells burning, not by price. Pre-mix each ratio in a closed bottle by weight, enough for all the candles of that ratio, so every candle gets the same blend rather than two separate drops of oil.

The five tests before you quote

A suggested starting plan is twelve test candles: each ratio with C1 and with C2 for burning, one of each ratio as a client sample, and one of each kept back as a retained colour sample. That uses 12 × 138 g = 1,656 g of wax. Four candles per ratio use 4 × (9.6 + 9 + 7.8) = 105.6 g of Bergamot Amber and 4 × (2.4 + 3 + 4.2) = 38.4 g of Woody Oud, which is why the test set buys 150 g of the first and 50 g of the second.

Documents. Corporate buyers may ask for safety paperwork. CSI's product pages state that its oils are IFRA certified, that IFRA and MSDS documents are available on WhatsApp request at +91 7397976926, and that a GST invoice is provided. Request the documents for both oils in the blend before the quote, not after.

Jar colour. If the client wants a coloured jar, check it first. Some colours of the matte 200 ml jar were out of stock when CSI's prices were last checked. The clear apothecary jar avoids that question.

Build the calendar before the quote

Count the days the tests really take. Each round of pouring needs at least the stated 48 to 72 hour soy cure before you burn, and burn tests run over several sessions. The client then needs time to burn their sample and reply, and a changed ratio sends you back to a new wick test. As a suggested starting point, allow for two full rounds before sign-off, then add your production days and your own packaging lead times. If that calendar does not fit the client's date, say so now; it is far easier to move a date before a quote than after one.

Full quantities and cost for 1,000 pieces

Plan for 1,030 pours, a suggested 3% allowance for rejects and retained samples. At 75:25 that means 1,030 × 138 g = 142,140 g of wax, 1,030 × 9 g = 9,270 g of Bergamot Amber and 1,030 × 3 g = 3,090 g of Woody Oud.

Per candle, the materials are 138 × ₹0.5074 = ₹70.02 of wax, 9 × ₹5.437 = ₹48.93 of Bergamot Amber, 3 × ₹4.5312 = ₹13.59 of Woody Oud, ₹94.40 for the jar and ₹5.90 for the wick: ₹232.84, before packaging, branding, labour, shipping and GST. If C2 wins the wick test, add ₹9.44 − ₹5.90 = ₹3.54.

Two details are worth knowing. CSI lists no wax pack above 10 kg, and larger quantities are quoted on WhatsApp, so the wax line above is the list-price ceiling. And nineteen 500 g bottles of Bergamot Amber would cost 19 × ₹2,718.00 = ₹51,642.00, nine rupees less than the 1 kg route; a trivial saving, but proof that every pack is worth checking. Prices on this page were checked on 1 October 2026, so re-check them on the day you quote.

Buy this to test, buy this once validated

Before quoting, ₹5,843.20: Bergamot Amber 100 g ₹560.00 and 50 g ₹280.00; Woody Oud 50 g ₹271.40; CSI 464 5 kg ₹2,537.00; apothecary jars, pack of 20, ₹1,888.00; Eco C1 20 ₹118.00; Eco C2 20 ₹188.80. That is about 2.4% of the production order, which is cheap insurance against quoting a candle that does not yet exist.

Once the client signs off a physical sample: the production order above at the approved ratio and wick, confirmed with CSI for quantity before you commit a delivery date. Keep pouring safely at volume: neither oil's page publishes a flashpoint, so read both MSDS documents and add the blend below the lower of the two figures, and never leave a test burn unattended.

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