Is 6%, 8% or 10% Fragrance Load Better for Soy Candles?
Aktie
How much oil is each load in grams? For 200 g of wax: 12 g at 6%, 16 g at 8%, 20 g at 10%. For a 150 g jar fill: 9 g, 12 g and 15 g. Loads are percentages of wax weight, weighed in grams — not millilitres.
What does the extra oil cost? With Roasted Coffee at 1 kg pricing, 6% to 10% on a 200 g candle is ₹29.90; across 100 candles, ₹2,990.40. On a 150 g jar sold at an illustrative ₹899.00, the whole decision is ₹22.43 — about 2.5% of the price.
How do I decide for my own candles? Pour three jars from one melt, change only the oil weight, cure 14–21 days, and judge hot throw from the doorway after ten minutes away. The round costs about ₹639.60 including three jars.
What changes between 6%, 8% and 10% — and what does not
All three figures are percentages of wax weight, which is how CSI product pages state them. Oil grams = wax grams × the load. For the series costing unit of 200 g of wax, 6% is 12 g of oil, 8% is 16 g and 10% is 20 g. The whole argument is those 8 g — about ₹29.90 of Roasted Coffee at 1 kg pricing, or ₹39.65 of Blue Ocean. Write that number down before you read anything else, because it sets how much the decision is actually worth.
| 6% | 8% | 10% | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oil in 200 g of wax | 12 g | 16 g | 20 g |
| Oil in a 150 g jar fill | 9 g | 12 g | 15 g |
| Oil cost (Roasted Coffee, 1 kg pricing) | ₹44.86 | ₹59.81 | ₹74.76 |
| Candle materials: wax + oil + C1 wick | ₹152.24 | ₹167.19 | ₹182.14 |
| Against CSI 464’s stated ceiling (10%) | 4 points spare | 2 points spare | At the ceiling |
| Against Luxury Soy Wax Chunks (13%) | 7 points spare | 5 points spare | 3 points spare |
| Where most CSI oil pages sit | Bottom of a 6–10% range | Middle of the range | Top of the range |
| Oil for 100 candles | 1.2 kg | 1.6 kg | 2 kg |
Now the honest half of the answer. Between those three jars, these things do not change: the wax and how it sets, the wick and how wide a pool it opens, the jar and how much surface that pool has, the room the candle is burned in, and the cure. Those five decide most of what a customer smells. Load is the sixth lever, not the first — which is why a 10% candle with a narrow pool and a three-day cure will lose to a 6% candle that is wicked properly and cured for a fortnight (how to make candles smell strong without exceeding the safe fragrance load).
There is a second reason to be careful with the word “better”. A load is not better in the abstract; it is better for a product. A 50 g tester in a gift box, a 150 g jar on a shelf at home, a 600 g three-wick in an open-plan Mumbai flat and a 70 g wedding favour that will be lit for twenty minutes are four different jobs. The same 8 g gap that is invisible in a small votive can be the difference between a 200 g candle that fills a bedroom and one that does not. The three-jar test later on this page is how you find out which case you are in, with your wax and your oil.
The grams and the money, per candle and per hundred
Oil price is the only material that changes between the three jars, so the arithmetic is short and worth doing properly. Below, three CSI oils at three loads, all on 200 g of wax. Roasted Coffee sits mid-range at ₹3.74 per gram, Citrus Lemon is among the cheaper single notes at ₹2.83 per gram, and Blue Ocean sits above both at ₹4.96 per gram. The pattern holds for any oil: each percentage point on 200 g of wax is 2 g, so the step from one load to the next is simply twice the per-gram price.
| Oil (1 kg price) | 6% · 12 g | 8% · 16 g | 10% · 20 g | 6% → 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citrus Lemon (₹2,832.00) | ₹33.98 | ₹45.31 | ₹56.64 | +₹22.66 |
| Roasted Coffee (₹3,738.00) | ₹44.86 | ₹59.81 | ₹74.76 | +₹29.90 |
| Blue Ocean (₹4,956.00) | ₹59.47 | ₹79.30 | ₹99.12 | +₹39.65 |
Scale it and the numbers start to matter. On 100 candles of 200 g, moving from 6% to 8% costs ₹1,495.20 of extra Roasted Coffee; 6% to 10% costs ₹2,990.40. Across a 500-candle Diwali run, a single percentage point is ₹7,476.00. That is real money, but set it against the whole materials bill: 100 candles at 6% cost ₹15,223.60 in wax, oil and wicks, and at 10% they cost ₹18,214.00. The load decision moves the materials bill by roughly a sixth — and moves nothing else on your invoice.
| Load | Oil needed | Roasted Coffee pack | Materials for 100 (wax + oil + C1) | Extra vs 6% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6% | 1.2 kg | 1 kg ₹3,738.00 + 100 gm ₹390.00 + 100 gm ₹390.00 | ₹15,223.60 | — |
| 8% | 1.6 kg | 1 kg ₹3,738.00 + 500 gm ₹1,890.00 + 100 gm ₹390.00 | ₹16,718.80 | +₹1,495.20 |
| 10% | 2 kg | 2 × 1 kg ₹3,738.00 | ₹18,214.00 | +₹2,990.40 |
Finally, put the decision where your customer sees it. Take a 150 g jar candle in a Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid (₹94.40 each in the 10-pack, page fill capacity about 150 g of wax) sold at an illustrative ₹899.00. At 6% the materials are ₹210.05; at 10% they are ₹232.48. The gap across the entire argument is ₹22.43 — about 2.5% of the selling price, leaving ₹688.95 against ₹666.52 in gross margin before labels, packaging, courier and GST (how to price your candles for profit). On 100 of those jars the difference is ₹2,242.80 of oil.
Does your wax — and your oil — allow all three?
Two published figures govern the top of your range: the wax’s stated fragrance load and the oil page’s own usage range. Where they differ, the lower one governs. For a 6/8/10 comparison that matters immediately — if the oil page stops at 9%, the honest test is 6/7.5/9, not 6/8/10, and you should say so on your own batch card rather than quietly pouring past the figure.
| Grade (200 g of wax) | Stated fragrance load | 6% | 8% | 10% | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 · ₹101.48 | Up to 10% | Yes | Yes | Yes, at the ceiling | The cheapest grade that spans the full comparison |
| Luxury Soy Wax Chunks · ₹119.80 | Up to 13% (8% start, 10% recommended) | Yes | Yes | Yes, 3 points spare | Its page names 8% as the start and 10% as the recommended load |
| Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 · ₹130.00 | Up to 13% | Yes | Yes | Yes, 3 points spare | Pour at 58–60°C; add temperature not published — ask |
| Eco Soy CSI 400 · ₹79.80 | Not published | Ask | Ask | Ask | Add fragrance at 85°C (80–90°C); message CSI before choosing a range |
Then the oil. Most CSI single notes state a candle range on the page, and 6–10% is the most common shape — which is exactly why 6, 8 and 10 are the three numbers worth comparing. A few pages are narrower or wider, so check yours before you plan the round.
| Fragrance oil | Page usage figure for candles | 6% | 8% | 10% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roasted Coffee | 6–10% | Bottom of range | Mid | Top of range |
| Citrus Lemon | 6–10% | Bottom of range | Mid | Top of range |
| Blue Ocean | Up to 10% | Inside | Inside | Its maximum |
| Sandalwood | Up to 10% for soy | Inside | Inside | Its maximum |
| Japanese Cherry Blossom | 6–13% | Bottom of range | Inside | Inside |
| Autumn | 7–11% for candles | Below the range | Inside | Inside |
| Fresh Strawberries | 6–9% for candles | Bottom of range | Inside | Above the range |
Two rows there change the test. Fresh Strawberries stops at 9%, so its honest comparison is 6/7.5/9 whatever wax you use — the wax’s spare points do not lift an oil page’s figure. Autumn starts at 7%, so 6% is below what its page recommends and the useful comparison is 7/9/11. Neither is a problem; both are reasons to read the oil page before you weigh anything. Where a page gives no candle range at all, ask CSI on WhatsApp rather than borrowing a number from a different oil.
What each load tends to smell like in soy
Soy is a low-melting, opaque wax that holds fragrance well and releases it slowly. That combination is why the same oil reads quieter in soy than in paraffin, and why soy candles reward cure time so heavily. Within that, the three loads tend to fail in different directions, and knowing the direction is more useful than any promised outcome.
| Load | Usually reads as | Its characteristic failure | What to change first |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6% | Clean, close to the candle, honest to the oil | Cold throw is thin on a shelf; the candle “does nothing” in a large or draughty room | Jar size and wick before load — a wider pool at 6% often beats a narrow pool at 10% |
| 8% | The usual middle: present in a bedroom-sized room, not overwhelming | Falls between two stools — not obviously stronger than 6% to most noses, not obviously cheaper | Cure time. At 8% the difference between day 3 and day 14 is bigger than the difference between 6% and 8% |
| 10% | Forward, sometimes sharp on the first burn before it settles | Sooty or mushrooming wick, a greasy top in heat, and no more perceived strength than 8% | Wick size down one step, and check the surface after 48 warm hours |
Fragrance family shifts all of this. A page-strong gourmand or woody oil often does at 6% what a light floral or aquatic cannot do at 10%, because the heavy base notes stay in the pool and keep working. Sharp citrus and ozonic notes are volatile: they read beautifully cold and burn off quickly, so raising the load raises the first ten minutes more than the second hour (fragrance load by family; how cure time changes different fragrance families).
Customer experience points the same way. A CSI buyer testing fragrance oils for five years writes that with a strong oil “you can go for the minimum percentage in candle still it will give amazing smell”, the Roasted Coffee page describes its throw as strong and a verified buyer calls the fragrance “really amazing” without any mention of pushing the load. A Blue Ocean buyer calls it “fresh and soothing”. None of that proves a number for your jar; it does suggest that with an oil whose own page rates it strong, the 6% jar in your test deserves to be taken seriously instead of dismissed in advance.
The three-jar test: one melt, three loads, three weeks
The design is deliberately strict. Everything except the oil weight is held constant, including the jar, the wick, the melt, the add temperature, the stir and the cure shelf. The wax below is Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 because its published ceiling of 10% exactly spans the comparison; the oil is Roasted Coffee because its page gives 6–10% for candles, which spans it too. Substitute your own pair, keeping the same rule: the load is the only thing that moves.
Materials for the round: 420 g of CSI 464, 33.6 g of Roasted Coffee, three Eco C1 wicks and three Clear Glass Jars with Golden Lid come to ₹639.60. If you are reusing jars you already own, it drops to ₹356.40. A 50 gm oil pack at ₹230.00 covers the oil; you do not need the 1 kg pack until you have a verdict.
| Date | Day | What you do | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 September | 0 | Pour three jars from one melt | Nothing yet — record the grams and temperatures |
| 17 September | 2 | Look at all three tops; press a clean tissue on each | Whether 10% is already showing free oil in your wax and jar |
| 22 September | 7 | Open the lids, smell cold, one jar at a time | Cold throw — the shelf and gift-box impression (what is cold throw) |
| 29 September | 14 | Burn each jar for 3 hours on separate evenings | First honest hot throw, pool width, wick behaviour |
| 6 October | 21 | Repeat the burns and decide | Whether the day-14 ranking holds once the candles have finished curing |
| 15 October | 30 | Pour production candles at the chosen load | A 14–21 day cure before Diwali on 8 November 2026 |
Scoring the three jars without fooling yourself
Three biases wreck this test. The first is knowing which jar you are smelling. The second is nose fatigue — after two minutes of any fragrance your nose stops reporting it, so smelling all three jars in a row produces a ranking of the order you smelled them in. The third is expectation: if you have just paid for a 1 kg pack, the 10% jar smells better. Blind labels, spaced sessions and a written sheet solve all three, and none of it costs anything.
| Stage | Question | How to score | Trap to avoid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 2 surface | Any beading, greasy sheen or tissue mark? | Clean / faint / obvious | Confusing frosting — a white crystalline bloom — with oil |
| Day 7 cold | At arm’s length with the lid just opened, is it there? | Yes / faint / no | Smelling the three in a row; leave 10 minutes and fresh air between |
| Day 14 pool | Does the pool reach the glass within 2–3 hours? | Full / short by X mm | Blaming load for a pool that never opened (wick guide by diameter) |
| Day 14 room | Walk out for 10 minutes, walk back in. Is it there at the door? | Strong / present / nothing | Standing over the candle — that tests your nose, not the throw |
| Day 14 wick | Flame height, soot on the glass, carbon mushroom by hour 2? | Clean / mushrooming / sooting | Reading a wick fault as a load success |
| Day 21 repeat | Does the day-14 ranking hold? | Same / changed | Deciding on one evening when a fortnight is available |
The doorway check in row four is the single most useful line on the sheet. Hot throw is a room-filling property, and the only honest measurement of it is made from outside the room. Light the candle, leave for ten minutes, come back in and write down what you notice in the first three seconds. Do it in the same room, at the same time of evening, with the same doors and fan setting for all three jars — an Indian ceiling fan on speed three will empty a small room of fragrance faster than any load can fill it (how to test hot throw before launching a fragrance).
One more discipline: get a second nose. Someone who does not know which jar is which, and who was not in the room when it was poured, will tell you in ten seconds what an hour of your own sniffing cannot. If you sell at exhibitions or on Instagram, that second nose is closer to your customer than yours is — you have been breathing this fragrance since 15 September. Keep the sheet; it becomes the evidence for the load you print on your process card (controlled burn testing).
Choosing by product, not by preference
If the test produces a clear winner, use it. If — as often happens — 8% and 10% are hard to separate and 6% is noticeably lighter, the choice becomes commercial rather than sensory, and it is decided by the product. The table below is a starting position for each common Indian case, to be overruled by your own scorecard.
| Product | Start at | Why | Materials note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50–70 g tester or favour (Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram, ₹31.86 each) | 6% | Short burns, small pool, often lit for twenty minutes at a table; the cost of oil per unit matters most here | 4.2 g of oil per 70 g fill; 100 favours need 420 g |
| 150 g retail jar (Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid, ₹94.40 each) | 8% | The workhorse. Big enough for a full pool, small enough that the room is usually a bedroom | 12 g per jar; materials ₹221.27 including the jar |
| 200 g+ single-wick for a living room | 8%, then 10% only if the doorway check fails | A larger pool already does much of the work; spend on wick sizing first | ₹167.19 of materials at 8%, ₹182.14 at 10% |
| 500–600 g multi-wick | 6–8% | Two or three pools mean far more evaporating surface than a single wick; high loads here are usually wasted | Pool area, not load, is the lever — see the wick guide by diameter |
| Corporate or wedding bulk, 300+ units | 6–8% | Unit cost compounds; a percentage point across 500 candles of 200 g is ₹7,476.00 | Lock the load before quoting, never after |
| Summer courier stock, April–June | One point below your chosen load | Parcels sit in hot vans; a point of margin below the wax ceiling costs little and prevents greasy tops | In CSI 464 that means 9% rather than 10% |
Indian conditions belong in the same decision. In a Mumbai or Kochi monsoon, lids-on curing and prompt packing matter more than the last two percentage points. In a Delhi or Ahmedabad April, a 10% candle in a wax rated to exactly 10% has no margin left for the van, so 9% is cheap insurance. In an open-plan flat with a fan running, no load fixes an undersized pool. And for Diwali and wedding-season gifting, where hundreds of identical candles go out, the number you can defend on a batch card matters more than the number that won one evening’s comparison.
Locking the load into your process
Convert the winning percentage into the grams you will actually weigh, for every jar you sell, and put those grams on a card by the bench. For the three sizes above at 8%: a 70 g votive takes 5.6 g, a 150 g jar takes 12 g, a 200 g candle takes 16 g. Batch figures follow: 1 kg of wax takes 80 g of oil, 5 kg takes 400 g. Nobody should be doing this arithmetic while the wax is at 85°C (fragrance oil for a 100 g candle; how much fragrance oil a candle business needs).
Record per batch: date, grade and pack, oil and pack, wax grams, oil grams, load, add temperature, stir time, pour temperature, room temperature, wick, jar, cure start. It takes thirty seconds and it is the only way a complaint in December can be traced to a pour in September. Candle Care Stickers (₹413.00 for 500) on the base of each jar give customers the burn instructions that protect the throw you paid for — a first burn to a full pool, and a trimmed wick.
Then hold the load steady and re-test only when something real changes: a new fragrance oil, a different wax grade, a jar with a different diameter, a move to multi-wick, or a season that changes how your candles travel. Re-testing because a single customer said “it could be stronger” is how a range ends up with six different loads, none of them documented, and a fragrance bill nobody can explain.
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials, not candles. We sell the fragrance oil, so a page that pushed everyone to 10% would earn us ₹2,990.40 more on every hundred candles. This one says the opposite: 8% is the sensible default, 6% is enough for small formats and page-strong oils, and the most common cure for a weak candle is a wider melt pool from a different wick — an Eco C2 costs ₹3.54 more than a C1 — not two more percentage points of oil.
Every price here is from live CSI stock in September 2026 and the linked product pages are authoritative. Fragrance loads are the manufacturers’ stated formulation figures quoted from CSI product pages: Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 up to 10%; Luxury Soy Wax Chunks up to 13%, with 8% named as the starting point and 10% as the recommended load; Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 up to 13%. Eco Soy CSI 400 does not publish a fragrance ceiling and Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 does not publish an add temperature — we say so rather than estimate. The three-jar protocol, the doorway check, the scorecard and the cure schedule are general candle-making practice, not CSI laboratory data, and no result is promised for any load.
WhatsApp +91 7397976926 for bulk pricing, GST invoicing, MSDS and IFRA documentation, the usage range of an oil whose page does not state one, or help reading a scorecard from a three-jar round you have already poured.
Frequently asked questions
- How to Make Candles Smell Strong Without Exceeding the Safe Fragrance Load
- How to Compare Two Fragrance Oils Using a Controlled Burn Test
- How to Test Hot Throw Before Launching a Candle Fragrance
- Why Your Candle Needs A 14-Day Cure
- How Much Fragrance Oil for 100g Candle?
- Best Temperature for Adding Fragrance Oil to Soy Wax
- Wrong Wick Size Is Killing Your Hot Throw
- What Fragrance Load Should You Use for Floral, Woody and Gourmand Oils?
- How to Price Your Candles for Profit (With Free Calculator)
Customer reviews: The six reviews at the top of this page are genuine, published Judge.me reviews left by CSI customers on their product pages. Names, star ratings, dates and products are as recorded by Judge.me. One longer review is shortened with an ellipsis; wording is otherwise unedited. Three are not recorded as a verified purchase — shown as recorded. Not recorded by Judge.me as a verified purchase, so shown without a verified-buyer badge: Emma Bechara, R.G., Ashwini. No location is shown against any review because Judge.me does not store one.
Figures verified September 2026 (CSI live pricing). Fragrance loads are percentages of wax weight (oil grams = wax grams × load), the convention used on CSI product pages; the series costing unit is 200 g of wax plus 16 g of fragrance oil at 8% (216 g poured). Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464: 500 g ₹260.00, 1 kg ₹507.40, 5 kg ₹2,537.00, 10 kg ₹5,074.00; page states a fragrance load of up to 10% and gives 80–90°C as the working range for melting and pouring. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks: 500 g ₹299.00, 1 kg ₹599.00, 5 kg ₹2,995.00; page states up to 13%, 8% starting point, 10% recommended, fragrance added at 80–90°C with a slow 2-minute stir, pour 75–80°C, cure 48 hours minimum and ideally 1–2 weeks. Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468: 500 g ₹325.00, 1 kg ₹650.00; page states up to 13%, melting point 50–53°C, pour 58–60°C. Eco Soy CSI 400: 1 kg ₹399.00, 5 kg ₹1,996.00; page gives fragrance added at 85°C within 80–90°C; fragrance ceiling not published. Fragrance oils, 1 kg pricing: Roasted Coffee ₹3,738.00 (₹3.74/g, page 6–10% for candles, flashpoint approximately 191–193°C, vanillin present in the base notes); Citrus Lemon ₹2,832.00 (₹2.83/g, page 6–10%); Blue Ocean ₹4,956.00 (₹4.96/g, page up to 10%, 0% vanillin, flashpoint 143°C); Sandalwood ₹5,026.80 (page up to 10% for soy); Japanese Cherry Blossom ₹4,842.00 (page 6–13%); Autumn ₹5,428.00 (page 7–11% for candles); Fresh Strawberries ₹3,540.00 (page 6–9% for candles). Smaller oil packs: Roasted Coffee 500 gm ₹1,890.00, 100 gm ₹390.00, 50 gm ₹230.00; Blue Ocean 50 gm ₹247.00. Eco Candle Wicks: Thin (C1) ₹5.90 each (100 for ₹590.00), Thick (C2) ₹9.44 each (100 for ₹944.00). Containers: Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid 10 for ₹944.00 (₹94.40 each; page gives a fill capacity of approximately 150 g of wax, 8 cm height, about 7 cm outer rim diameter); Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram 10 for ₹318.60 (₹31.86 each, page about 70 g wax fill). Tools: Pen Thermometer ₹354.00; Steel Pouring Pitcher 600 ml ₹708.00; Bamboo Stirring Sticks 5 for ₹118.00; Candle Care Stickers Roll 500 for ₹413.00. Computed on 200 g of CSI 464 (₹101.48 of wax): oil ₹44.86 at 6%, ₹59.81 at 8%, ₹74.76 at 10%; candle materials with a C1 wick ₹152.24, ₹167.19, ₹182.14; per 100 candles ₹15,223.60, ₹16,718.80, ₹18,214.00; one step ₹1,495.20 per 100 and ₹7,476.00 per 500; 6% to 10% ₹2,990.40 per 100. 150 g jar candles including the jar: ₹210.05 at 6%, ₹221.27 at 8%, ₹232.48 at 10%, a spread of ₹22.43; against an illustrative retail price of ₹899.00 that is 2.5% of the price and margins of ₹688.95 and ₹666.52 before labels, packaging, courier and GST. Three-jar test round (420 g wax, 33.6 g oil, 3 C1 wicks, 3 jars) ₹639.60, or ₹356.40 without jars. C2 minus C1 ₹3.54 per candle. The retail price of ₹899.00 is illustrative only and is not a CSI figure. Test schedule dates assume a pour on 15 September. Diwali 2026 is 8 November 2026. Prices and availability change — the linked product pages are always authoritative.