Which Raw Materials for a Custom Wedding Candle Should Be Client-Approved Before I Commit to Bulk Purchasing?

The worked order, and what is at stake

The title gives no figures, so this is a worked example: 450 wedding candles in the clear 200ml Salsa jar, filled to a worked 160 g at 8% (12.8 g of oil and 147.2 g of wax each, load as a share of total weight). A 200 ml jar does not hold 200 g of wax: a common rule of thumb puts wax to the brim at roughly 172–180 g, and the fill line sits below the brim, so the 160 g is a planning figure until you weigh a test pour. Add 10 extras (three client samples, four retains, three QC burn candles) and a 4% loss buffer: 480 pours. The client has two fragrances in mind (a rose and a cherry blossom), a blush tint, and has asked whether wooden wicks are possible.

When the order runs, this post’s list is one gate in a longer sequence; the full path from sample to delivery is 6360, and how long the custom development takes is 6358.

The approval list, item by item

Fragrance: a burnt candle, after cure, coded

A bottle or a cold candle tells the client how the oil smells, not how the candle fills a room. So the approval sample is a candle poured at the load you intend to use, cured (both CSI 464 and the oil need time; many makers wait well past the 48–72 hours some oil pages state before judging hot throw), and burnt. Send two of each option, one burnt and one not, labelled with codes rather than names, so the client chooses a scent, not a word. In the worked plan that sample takes 8 days of calendar time from pour to courier. If you are testing a fragrance you have never used, the full test sequence is 6341.

Colour: cured, in daylight, against a chip

Soy wax commonly looks different freshly set than cured, and the oil itself can shift the shade, so the colour sample is poured with the approved fragrance at the approved load and shown after cure (5 days in the worked plan), in daylight, with a wax chip of the same pour that both of you keep. How to turn that approval into a repeatable dye recipe is 6343; what to do when production drifts from the approved shade is 6344.

Jar, lid and fill: the physical object

The client approves a jar from the batch you will use, with its lid, filled to the line you will use. That last point does two jobs. It fixes the look (how full the jar appears) and it fixes the net grams you print on the label, which in turn sets your wax and oil kilos. Net-quantity labelling rules apply to packaged goods sold in India; check current requirements for your case (this is not legal advice).

Wick look: the style is theirs, the size is yours

Show both, burning. Wooden wicks crackle and look rustic; cotton wicks are quieter and cheaper. The client chooses the style. The size stays your call, settled by a burn test in this jar with this oil; and with Performance Wooden Wicks there is only one CSI listing, with no width variants, so if wooden does not burn properly in this jar, the honest answer is to go back to the client with cotton, not to approve a wooden wick that fails at the halfway point. Switching an existing formula from cotton to wooden is a formula change in its own right (what to retest when changing cotton to wooden wicks).

Label, packaging and the golden sample

Printed proofs are approved as versions: names, date, spelling, scent name and net weight, signed on a numbered proof. The golden sample comes last: one finished candle made from every approved material, labelled and boxed, signed and dated, one kept by each side. It is the sample every production candle is judged against, and the signature that releases the bulk order.

What "approved" actually means

What stays your technical call

Holding this line protects the client as much as you. A client who "approves 10%" because stronger sounds better has approved a number, not a candle; in CSI 464 that is the wax page’s stated maximum, and maximum is not the same as best. The client approves the burnt sample; you choose the load that produces it, inside the lower of the wax page’s stated ceiling and the oil page’s. Equally, they should never be asked to pick a wick size: CSI’s C1 and C2 pages state no jar-diameter range, and only a burn test in this jar decides.

"Your call" is not "no record". Every technical decision goes on your batch sheet next to the approval codes, and if you change one after the client has signed (a different wax, a different load to fix a wick problem), the honest position is that the approved sample no longer describes the product: make a new golden sample. Changes the client asks for after you have bought materials are a commercial question, covered in 6351; changes during sampling, before you buy, are 6350.

Which purchase each approval unlocks

Map approvals to purchases and the order of buying writes itself. The wax is your call and reusable, so it can be bought whenever suits your cash; but its quantity waits for the fill approval. The oil waits for the fragrance and the fill. Jars wait for the jar approval; wicks for the wick look plus your burn test; dye for the colour; boxes for the jar fit and the packaging proof.

Two rounding notes. Five 100-packs of clear Salsa jars (₹14,750.00) are ₹129.80 cheaper than exactly 490 jars bought as 4 × 100, 1 × 50 and 8 × 5, because the 5-pack is dearer per jar (₹40.12 against ₹29.50); so round up. The oil is the reverse: British Rose kilos are cheaper than two 500 g packs, so the plan buys 6 kilos and tops up with 100 g and 50 g bottles rather than a seventh kilo.

The two 100 g bottles cover the 6/8/9% ladder (36.8 g of each oil at 160 g) and two wick-look candles per oil (25.6 g more), leaving a little over 37 g in each. The colour and golden-sample candles are poured from the bulk oil once the fragrance is signed, which is also better practice: the golden sample should be made from the production lot, not the sample bottle.

Products for the approval samples

Two fragrance candidates, the jar the client approves, both wick looks and your wax. Nothing is ranked on performance; CSI publishes no burn or throw data, which is exactly why the client approves a burnt sample.

Frequently asked questions