Can I First Identify a Likely Wick Range Using One Reference Fragrance and Then Test Only Nearby Sizes for Every Additional Fragrance?

Step 1: the reference ladder

The reference ladder is an ordinary three-rung bracket: C1, C2 and Cotton Braided, three candles each, nine candles from one pot. Your 7 cm inside jar has 38.48 cm² of pool; that is not a CSI jar (CSI's 7 cm glass listings state an outer figure, about 6.3 cm inside on our 0.35 cm wall assumption), so measure your own at two heights. The 150 g fill at 8% is 12 g of oil + 138 g of wax, load as a share of total candle weight.

Burn the nine in sessions of about 2.8 hours (a very rough hour per 2.5 cm of width), still air, trimmed to about 5–6 mm, and take the reference through its full life before you trust it: the reference result is the foundation every other oil stands on. A bracket closes when the chosen wick has a documented fail on each side; how that rule works is the 7 cm adjacent-sizes post.

If your reference lands on C2 instead, nothing about the method changes except the rungs: light oils then test on C1 and C2, heavy ones on C2 and Cotton Braided. Which oil to use as the reference, and whether a heavy one sets better inventory bounds, is the heaviest-reference post; this page assumes you have chosen.

Step 2: two rungs for every other oil

With Lavender on C1, the "nearby sizes" for every extra oil are C1 and C2: the reference's wick and the next rung up, because most oils in a range are at least as demanding as a light herbal (judgement). Two candles each on C1 and C2, screened at burn 3; then a third candle on whichever led, so the oil can be approved on three candles through the full life. Each extra oil uses 48 g for the screen and 60 g with its approval candle: a 50 g bottle leaves only 2 g after the screen, so buy 50 g + 15 g (₹375.02 at Lavender's prices as a stand-in), which leaves 5 g.

How to read each oil's four screen candles:

Approve an oil only when three candles on one wick reach about 1 cm left with no heat, soot or flame trouble in the final third, judged by eye and never by touch. How far down a test must go to count is the acceptance-depth post.

Counts and packs: 1 + 5 and 1 + 10

Worked example winners: for 1 + 5, four extras win on C1 and one on C2; for 1 + 10, seven on C1 and three on C2. Packs are the smallest in-stock combination that covers each count. Oil is priced at Lavender's bottles as a stand-in for every oil (your oils' prices differ); wax at the Chunks 1 kg price; your jars excluded.

Look at where the saving comes from. For 1 + 10, the wick packs account for ₹454.40 of the ₹6,460.88, 7.0% of it; the rest is oil and wax you never pour, plus 40 of your jars. That is why reference-first is worth its risk at all: not because wicks are expensive (they are flat per wick and cheap), but because every unnecessary rung costs a whole candle.

C1 50-pack or two 20-packs?

For 1 + 10, C1 is the busiest rung: 30 wicks (23 for the screen and 7 approval candles). Two 20-packs (₹236.00) cover it with 10 spare; one 50-pack (₹295.00) covers it with 20 spare, ₹59.00 more cash at exactly the same ₹5.90 a wick. The only reason to choose the 50 is that, with Lavender and seven extras approved on C1, those 20 wicks are production stock you will burn next month. That is a cash-timing choice, not a saving; with the 50-pack the 1 + 10 wick order is ₹698.20.

The risk you are buying

Three things are given up, and one of them costs real money when it happens.

In numbers: if two of ten extras turn out to be outliers above C2, the rescues cost about ₹1,107.97 in the worked example, and the 1 + 10 saving is still ₹5,352.91 after them. The time cost does not show in rupees: each rescue adds a cure and a screen. A cheaper way to catch likely outliers before pouring anything is a paper pre-screen of each oil's stated family, notes, vanillin and load range: the twelve-fragrance pre-screen post. Grouping oils by burn behaviour as a house standard is the behaviour-groups post. And if you would rather screen everything on one house wick and buy neighbours only for failures, that is the staged ten-fragrance schedule: a different trade, with no reference ladder.

From approvals to production quantity

After every oil is approved, size production per wick SKU: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), with 5% as our worked-example allowance. Worked example: 30 candles of each oil a month; Lavender and seven extras on C1, three extras on C2.

The lead time is yours: CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times or stock depth, so confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a big run. Whether a third SKU for one odd oil is ever worth carrying is the extra-SKU post; per-SKU reorder points at higher volume are the 500-candles-a-month post.

What to buy, and what to skip

Four items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 12 g per 150 g candle at 8%.

Skip for this method: Cotton Braided packs beyond the reference's 10 (the extras never test on it unless they fail low on both rungs); Performance Wooden Wicks (one listing with no widths, so it cannot be a rung in a bracket); 100 g bottles of every extra oil (50 g + 15 g covers five candles); and the 5 kg or 10 kg of wax (no cheaper per gram).

Frequently asked questions