My New Jar Holds the Same 200 g but Is Slightly Wider and Shorter — Can I Use the Same Wick as My Previous Container?

Same 200 g is not the same candle

Keeping the weight the same feels like keeping the candle the same: the customer pays for 200 g, you pour 200 g, the fuel is identical. What changes is the shape the fuel takes. A wider jar spreads the same volume of wax over a bigger floor, so the column gets shorter, and a wick's job is set by the surface it has to melt each burn, not by the weight it will eventually consume. Your title gives no dimensions, so this page uses a labelled illustration: an old jar with a 7.2 cm internal diameter and a new one at 7.6 cm. Put your own measurements into the same formulas.

Read the table from the bottom up. Total fuel: identical. Fuel in the top centimetre — roughly what the first burn has to melt to reach the glass — is 4.1 g more in the new jar. The depth the wick burns through is 5.7 mm less. And the ratio of surface to depth, which is the simplest single number for how "wide and shallow" a candle is, rises by 24.1%, because the area goes up and the height comes down at the same time. That ratio is why "same weight" is misleading: a 200 g candle can be a tall, easy-to-wick column or a short, wide disc, and the wick that suits one may under-melt the other.

The five-jar table makes the point without any burn data: moving 0.4 cm wider each step, the area climbs 11.4%, 23.5%, then 36.1% above the old jar, while the column shrinks towards 4 cm. Somewhere along that row your approved wick stops reaching the glass in a normal burn. Where exactly depends on your wax, your oil and your wick — which is why CSI does not publish a wick-per-diameter chart and why nobody honestly can. For a change you can measure precisely, the 7.6 → 7.9 cm hub post shows how area and height move for a 3 mm step.

So can you use the same wick?

Yes, as the starting point of the test — not as the approval. The approved wick is your best first guess because everything else in the candle is unchanged: same wax, same oil, same load, same fuel. What you are checking is whether it can still melt a bigger surface in a normal burn, and whether the shorter column changes anything at the end of the candle's life. Those are the two ways a wider, shorter jar can catch out a wick that was right in the old one.

Notice that the first two mechanisms pull in opposite directions. A wider pool is harder to melt fully, but once it is melted it can feed the wick more fuel. That is why a wider jar sometimes produces both a tunnel ring in the first burns and a busier flame later — and why the answer is always a side-by-side, never a size change on instinct. If your new jar is wider because its walls are thinner, with the same outside diameter, the thicker-glass post covers the reverse case.

The retest matrix for a wider, shorter jar

The matrix below uses the series' four verdicts: KEEP (still valid), CONFIRM (short side-by-side), REPEAT (full retest), NEW (never needed before). It differs from the general jar list in the only-the-jar post in one place: because this jar is also shorter, the end-of-life line moves up from conditional to planned.

The staged test: six candles first, bracket only if needed

For a same-weight change the approved wick is a strong starting point, so this page recommends a staged test rather than pouring every option at once. Stage 1 is six candles: three in the old jar as the control, three in the new jar, all on the approved wick. Only if the new jar lands in ADJUST do you pour Stage 2, three more new-jar candles on a bracket wick. Pouring the bracket up front, as the hub post suggests for a diameter change you cannot control, costs a little more material but saves one cure cycle if the approved wick falls short. Here is the trade in rupees.

If the approved wick passes, the staged plan costs ₹1,679.00 and you are done. If it does not, buying the bracket materials as a separate order brings the total to ₹2,746.40, against ₹2,343.40 for pouring everything at once — the separate order costs ₹403.00 more, because small packs are rounded twice, and it costs one extra cure cycle. For a same-weight change with a modest area increase, many makers will take that bet. For a change you cannot see the end of — a jar lot that varies, a festive deadline — pour all nine.

The priced test kit

The worked example uses Luxury Soy Wax Chunks — CSI's default container wax, rated up to 13% by the wax maker — and Japanese Cherry Blossom, a floral with 15 g, 50 g and 100 g in stock. The 8% load is our working assumption. Jars are yours: CSI does not know your jar, and your new supplier's jar is the thing being tested.

The wick line needs a plain statement. We use Eco Candle Wicks Thin C1 as the approved wick in this example and Thick C2 as the Stage 2 bracket only because those are the two Eco sizes CSI lists (₹59.00 and ₹94.40 for ten). CSI does not publish which wick suits which diameter, and we do not claim Thick C2 is "one size up" for your wax. If your approved wick is from another range, bracket within that range. Your new jars are an example cost only — for instance six at ₹45.00, ₹270.00; replace with your supplier's price.

Decision rule and release

CSI publishes no numeric flame-height or jar-temperature limits, so the rule is relative to your control and to the standard you work to. Set your own tolerance for the performance lines — for example, "full melt pool within the same burn cycle as the control" — before you read any results, and write it on the sheet.

Once a decision is made, record it: old and new jar supplier, measured internal diameters and fill heights, whether you fill by weight or by line, the wick used, the test sheet and the date. Keep one unburned candle from each set. The reproducibility-record post shows a format that still makes sense a year later, and the change-control form post turns it into a one-page form.

When your change is not just wider and shorter

Real jar swaps rarely change one dimension. If the new jar is wider and tapered, the straight-to-tapered post shows how the pool area shifts with depth, and the narrowing-jar post covers the specific risk of a wick that is right at the top and too strong near the base. If the new jar is also heavier-bottomed, read the thicker-base post before you plan the full-life burn. If the new jar is the same width but taller, the shape problem reverses — the taller-jar post works that one.

And if you have not chosen the new jar yet — you are comparing candidates because your usual one is out of stock — do the geometry before you order samples. The alternative-container post scores candidates on the measurements that predict redevelopment work, and the 1,000-candle post adds the quantity and deadline maths when the order is already promised.

Frequently asked questions