How Do I Build a Wick-Test Ladder for a New Candle Jar Using Diameter, Wax Type, Fragrance Load and Expected Burn Behaviour Before Buying Wicks in Bulk?

The worksheet: seven lines from jar to bulk order

Every post in this cluster answers one purchasing question for one jar situation. This one strings them together into a sheet you can fill in for any new jar. The rule column is what to apply; the examples column is our two worked ladders. The thresholds and the judgement calls are labelled; the arithmetic is declared.

Lines 1–3: the inputs that decide where the ladder starts

Line 1, the inside diameter. The wick sees the pool, and the pool is π r² on the inside radius. CSI's jar listings give an outer, unspecified or "width" figure, or none at all; no listing states an internal diameter. On our labelled 0.35 cm wall, the 150 g Clear Glass Jar's "outer diameter 7cm" is about 6.3 cm inside (31.17 cm²) and the Apothecary's "Approx. 10 cm" about 9.3 cm (67.93 cm²): 2.18 times the surface. How to get a real inside figure is external versus internal diameter; what else to record before you order (fill height, session length, monthly volume) is the pre-order spec sheet.

Line 2, wax and load. Two ceilings apply and the lower governs: the wax page's maximum and the oil page's candle maximum. CSI 464 states "Fragrance Load Up to 10%"; Lavender's page says "6-10% for candles" and Roasted Coffee's "candles (6-10%)". Both ladders run at 8% of total weight, 8.70% of wax weight, inside 10% on either basis. Max load is not best load; test at the load you will produce. The fill weight changes how much wax and oil the ladder eats and how many burn days it takes, not which wicks go in the order: that split is the diameter-or-weight post.

Line 3, oil class and expected behaviour. Heavier, vanillin-rich or resinous oils are commonly linked to needing a larger wick, or to more carbon on the wick, than light florals and herbals in the same jar: a tendency, not a law, and CSI publishes no wick data for any oil. Read the page notes: Lavender is "fresh lavender top notes, herbal green mid notes, and soft musk base" (light, our reading); Roasted Coffee has "a warm vanilla and caramel base" (heavy). Expected behaviour is your forecast of the failure you are most likely to see: a ring at the glass (under-wicked) or carbon and a tall flame (over-wicked). Write it down; it decides the direction on line 4.

Lines 4–5: centre, direction, arms and counts

CSI's options form one short line: three sized, tabbed wicks, Eco C1 → Eco C2 → Cotton Braided, then pairs of C1 or C2 (with triples beyond, for very wide vessels). There is no sized, tabbed wick between those rungs, none smaller than C1, and none larger than Cotton Braided; the braided rolls are unsized and cut to length, and the one wooden-wick listing has no widths. That short line is what makes a worksheet possible: there are only so many places a centre can sit.

Two rules turn a centre into arms. One arm either side, so the winner can be flanked by a fail below (a ring at the glass) and a fail above (a tall flame, carbon, a pool well past 1 cm); the closure rule itself is the bracket-closure post, and why three sizes is the usual breadth is the sample-breadth post. At a range end, add the next arm inward: a C1 centre has nothing tabbed below it, so the ladder adds Cotton Braided above C2 to keep a C2 win closable; a pair centre adds a single-wick anchor (Cotton Braided) below, to document that one wick is not enough before you double the wicks in every candle.

Counts follow: three candles per arm, so one odd candle (a drifted tab, a draught) can be outvoted. Wicks = 3 × wicks per candle per arm. Extra candles per arm for retests or spares are the per-size sample-count post; the cluster's default is three.

Line 6: packs and rupees

Packs come from the counts. CSI's smallest in-stock packs are larger than any single ladder's need: C1 in 20s (the 10-pack is out of stock on 1 October 2026), C2 and Cotton Braided in 10s. Any three-arm ladder on CSI's line, single or paired, fits inside C1 20 + C2 10 + Cotton Braided 10 = ₹332.40, as long as no ladder needs more than 20 C1, 10 C2 or 10 Cotton Braided (a three-arm ladder never does). Because C1, C2 and Cotton Braided are flat per wick in every pack (₹5.90, ₹9.44, ₹12.00), a bigger pack would change the cash, never the unit cost.

Oil and wax are where the money is, so size them carefully: enough for the ladder plus a three-candle re-pour, matched to in-stock bottle sizes. Jars and holders complete the order. Every figure below excludes labour, freight, packaging and GST.

Read the last row twice. The wick cash is identical; the ladders are not. Ladder B costs about twice as much, almost all of it in coffee, wax and wide jars. That is the cluster's purchasing lesson in one table: an extra arm costs a candle, not a wick, and a wrong production order costs a hundred candles.

Worked example A: 7 cm jar, Lavender, CSI 464

The jar is CSI's Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid (150 gram): "Height 8cm, outer diameter 7cm", "150g fill capacity", "Safe for hot pour up to 85°C". Inside, on our wall assumption, about 6.3 cm and 31.17 cm². A very rough rule of thumb (about an hour per 2.5 cm of width) gives about 2.5 hours to a full first pool, inside the commonly quoted 3–4 hours. The fill is the jar's 150 g at 8%: 12 g of Lavender and 138 g of CSI 464.

Line 3 calls Lavender light; line 4 puts the centre at C1, the bottom of CSI's tabbed range, with the direction up. Because C1 is a range end (no sized, tabbed wick below it), line 5 adds Cotton Braided above C2 so that a C2 win can still be flanked from above. Three arms, nine candles. A C1 test candle is ₹140.72 in materials and a Cotton Braided one ₹146.82: the dearest arm costs a few rupees more per candle than the cheapest, so there is no case for leaving the top arm out to save money.

Why 100 g + 50 g of Lavender and not 100 g + 15 g (₹645.02)? The cheaper pair leaves 7 g, not one candle; 100 g + 50 g leaves 42 g, enough for a three-candle re-pour (36 g). Lavender's 50 g and 100 g are both ₹5.40 a gram, so the reserve costs no per-gram penalty. Likewise two 1 kg bags of wax, not 1 kg + 500 g (₹767.40), which would leave 258 g, short of a re-pour's 414 g. Pour at 80–85°C: CSI 464's page says 80–90°C and the jar's 85°C limit governs.

The likely outcome, as judgement: C1 or C2. If C1 wins, C2 is the fail above and nothing below C1 can be tested with a tabbed wick, so approve on the full life and the documented C2 fail. The 7 cm version of this purchase problem, and the stop-buying rule for rungs that fail, is the 7 cm adjacent-rungs post.

Worked example B: 10 cm jar, Roasted Coffee, two wicks

The jar is CSI's Apothecary Glass Candle Jar with Dome Lid (500 gm): outer rim and base "Approx. 10 cm", "Safe for hot-pour up to 85°C". About 9.3 cm inside on our wall, 67.93 cm², or 33.96 cm² per wick with two. The rough rule of thumb gives about 3.7 hours to a full first pool for one wick, close to the top of the commonly quoted 3–4 hours. The fill is a labelled 450 g at 8%: 36 g of Roasted Coffee and 414 g of CSI 464.

Line 3 calls Roasted Coffee heavy (its "warm vanilla and caramel base"), and line 1 says the pool is 2.18 times ladder A's. Cotton Braided's page describes it for jars "exceeding 8 cm", but this pool is past where we would bet on one wick with a heavy oil, so line 4 centres on a pair, 2 × C1, with the direction up (2 × C2) and one anchor below: a Cotton Braided single, expected to fail, to document that one wick is not enough before every production candle carries two. Where single and double are both worth running is judgement, discussed in the 10 cm spend-stop post.

Here the bigger bottle is the right buy, and we would say so even if it were not ours. The ladder needs 324 g; 3 × 100 g + 50 g (₹1,400.00) leaves 26 g and 4 × 100 g (₹1,560.00) leaves 76 g, neither enough for a three-candle re-pour (108 g). The 500 g leaves 176 g and is cheaper per gram (₹3.78 against ₹3.90). The same logic picks the 5 kg wax bag over four 1 kg bags (₹2,029.60, 274 g left, short of a re-pour's 1,242 g); CSI 464 is flat per gram from 1 kg, so the 5 kg costs no more per gram.

Line 7: the bulk trigger

Cure all candles together (Roasted Coffee's page: "Always cure soy wax candles for at least 48-72 hours before burn testing"; many makers wait about a week), burn in 3–4 hour sessions in still air, trim to about 5–6 mm, and screen at burn 3. Then carry every candle of the leading arm to about 1 cm left. Near the bottom, judge how close the flame sits to the glass by eye; never touch the glass to judge heat. The gates themselves (what is fixed at each, what to record) belong to the commercial wick-system post and to the cluster hub's two-gate rule; how far down a test candle must burn is the acceptance-depth post.

When three of three pass, line 7 writes the order: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance), with 5% as our worked-example allowance, in packs that add up to the number.

Reorder point for ladder A's winner: 7 wicks a day × your lead time + safety stock; with a 10-day order-to-bench time and a week of cover, reorder at 119. The 10 days is yours: CSI dispatches from Pune and does not publish lead times or stock depth, so confirm dispatch on WhatsApp before a big run. Reorder points across several wick SKUs are the per-SKU reorder post.

What to buy for the two worked ladders, and what to skip

Six items, in worksheet order, 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 counts use 12 g per 150 g candle and 36 g per 450 g candle.

Skip for these ladders: the Steel Wick Holder (₹250.00 for 5) for ladder B, since its page says "up to 9 cm wide" (it suits pairs in jars up to that width); the Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82) and Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m), unsized, for a second round only if a ladder lands between rungs; Eco Candle Wicks Loose (₹413.00 for 5 m), whose page says "2 inch diameters"; and Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10), one width, so not a rung.

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