One Fragrance Oil Costs More but Gives Stronger Hot Throw at a Lower Dosage — How Do I Compare Fragrance Oils by Cost per Finished Candle Rather than Price per Kilogram?

The formula, term by term

Two terms separate this formula from the back-of-envelope version. Displacement, the (1 − L), means a higher-load oil saves you wax. The saving is small per gram, since wax is about ₹0.51 a gram in CSI 464, but it is real, and it narrows the gap between a cheap oil at high load and a dear oil at low load. Pour loss grosses up oil and wax together, because you lose scented wax, not one or the other. A 4% loss makes every candle's oil and wax 4.17% dearer than the recipe suggests. It does not change the ranking, but it does change the price you must charge.

The trial term is small on a long run and large on a short one. A 15 g tester spread over 300 candles adds well under a rupee each. The same tester spread over a 20-candle gift order adds several rupees, and a full 6/8/10% ladder with wick checks adds more. Include it when you compare a new oil against one you already use. The incumbent's trial is already paid for, and the newcomer's is not. I'm Switching Fragrance Oil Suppliers to Reduce Cost — Which Cold Throw, Hot Throw, Colour, Wick and Stability Tests Should I Repeat Before Production? counts the full retest cost of a switch.

Five oils, two rankings

Here is a shortlist of five CSI oils for one slot in a range, each at the lowest load an illustrative ladder found acceptable. Two value oils needed 10%, Jasmine 7%, Lavender 6% and Dark Vanilla 5%. Those loads are a worked scenario, not CSI performance data. CSI publishes no throw or dosage figures for any oil, so your ladder will give different numbers. The wax is Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464, rated up to 10%, so the two value oils sit at its ceiling.

The per-kilo order is Fresh Strawberries, Orchard Pear, Jasmine, Lavender, Dark Vanilla. The per-candle order is Jasmine, Lavender, Fresh Strawberries, Orchard Pear, Dark Vanilla. Jasmine, third by price, makes the cheapest candle, because 7% of a ₹3,923.00 oil (14 g, ₹54.92) costs less than 10% of a ₹3,540.00 one (20 g, ₹70.80). Lavender at 6% also beats both 10% oils. Dark Vanilla stays last. At ₹7,646.00 a kilo its 5% load does not close the gap, and its break-even load against Jasmine at 7% would be 3.35%.

Across the five candles, wick and jar are a fixed ₹76.70, and the spread comes almost entirely from the oil column: ₹54.92 to ₹76.46. The wax column moves the other way. The 10% candles hold 180 g of wax and the 5% candle 190 g, a difference of ₹5.07 that softens the value oils' disadvantage slightly. The trial column is under a rupee at 300 candles for every oil. That is the full answer to the title's question. The dearer, lower-dosage oil makes the cheaper candle whenever its net oil cost per candle, W × L × (p − wax), is lower. Lavender's is ₹56.56 and Orchard Pear's ₹64.61.

Getting the inputs right

The load must be each oil's own lowest passing load, found by the same test for every oil: same wax, wick, jar, cure and scoring. Comparing one oil at its optimum with another at a habitual 8% is the most common way this formula gives a confident wrong answer. How Do I Find the Lowest Fragrance Load That Still Gives Strong Hot Throw so I'm Not Wasting Expensive Fragrance Oil? and How Do I Compare the Performance of 6%, 8% and 10% Fragrance Loads Objectively Instead of Choosing Whichever Candle Smells Strongest to Me? cover how to find and score it. The price per gram must be the size you will actually buy. Jasmine at 7% costs ₹96.13 of oil per candle from 15 g testers and ₹54.92 from the kilo. A 300-candle run needs 4,375 g, which is 4 × 1 kg + 4 × 100 g (₹17,412.00). And some sizes are out of stock. Moca Coffee's 1 kg was out of stock on the pull date, so its production price is the 100 g at ₹11.20 a gram until the kilo returns.

The wax changes the displacement credit. In Luxury Soy Wax Chunks (₹599.00/kg, up to 13%) Jasmine's oil + wax is ₹166.34, against ₹149.30 in CSI 464. Dearer wax gives a bigger credit per gram of oil. If you are choosing the wax at the same time, cost every oil in both. Remember the ceilings too: CSI 464 is rated up to 10% and Chunks up to 13%, and any load above a wax's stated ceiling is not allowed. The loss is yours to measure. Weigh what you mixed and what went into saleable jars on your first two batches. Plan 3–5% until then, as a working assumption.

From material cost to full cost

The formula gives material cost: oil, wax, wick, jar and the losses and trials that attach to them. It excludes labour, packaging, freight and GST. CSI has no prices for labels, boxes, lids (except jars sold with caps), courier or payment-gateway fees, so any figure for them here is an example to replace with your own quote. For instance, example label ₹8.00 and example box ₹25.00, which you replace with your printer's and box supplier's quotes.

The packaging lines are the same whichever oil you choose, so they never change the ranking. That is why the comparison between oils can stop at material cost. They do change the share fragrance takes of the whole candle, and therefore how much a dearer oil moves your final price. When you set that price, show both margin views and name them. Gross margin is (price − cost) ÷ price, and markup is (price − cost) ÷ cost. My Cheapest Fragrance Oil Requires 12% Load While My Premium Oil Works at 7% — How Do I Calculate Which Is More Profitable at 1,000-candle Scale? works through both at 1,000-candle scale.

A worksheet you can reuse

Two siblings take the method further. I'm Comparing a ₹2,000/kg Fragrance That Performs at 10% with a ₹4,000/kg Fragrance That Performs Strongly at 6% — Which One Actually Costs Less per Candle? works the two-oil case to a single break-even load. I'm Paying More for a Concentrated Candle Fragrance Oil — How Do I Test Whether the Higher Price Is Justified by Lower Usage and Better Performance? covers testing whether a "concentrated" oil really earns its price, including a blind test so that cost does not bias your nose. For how many kilos each ranked oil needs, see I Need Enough Fragrance Oil for 500 × 200 g Candles at 8% Load — How Much Should I Order After Including Formulation Trials and Production Wastage?, and for whether a winner deserves a kilo at all, see I'm Launching 10 Candle Fragrances — How Do I Decide Which Scents Deserve 1 Kg Fragrance Oil Purchases and Which Should Remain in Smaller Trial Sizes?.

Frequently asked questions