How Do I Calculate the Ideal Number of Weeks of Raw-Material Inventory for a Growing Candle Business Using Consumption, Supplier Lead Time and Demand Variability?
शेयर करना
CSI 468 ₹637 / kg at 5kg and above · Wooden wicks ₹41.30 each at 100 500g packs to 10kg bags Stocked in India · ships nationwide
CSI inventory guides · the calculation
Four terms, all of them yours. Add them up and the number of weeks stops being a guess.
★★★★☆
"Will buy more.. wonderful"
Punam SarmaVerified buyer · Dec 2024
Cinnamon Vanilla
★★★★★
"Cute jars, I like it."
AshwiniSep 2025
White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram
★★★★★
"My customer was very happy with this apple cinnamon fragrance.…"
PREETHI PRASATHVerified buyer · May 2026
Apple Cinnamon Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Good quality wood fragrance oil with a warm, long-lasting scent and strong performance in candles."
Payal PatelVerified buyer · Mar 2026
Woody Oud Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Highly recommended for candle making. Convenient to use."
Mohabatti Ki DukaanVerified buyer · Jan 2026
Mini Electric Wax Melter
★★★★★
"Absolutely loved it!! Smells so perfect!! Go for itt! Packing is done very carefully and happy for that!❤️"
Kavitha murthyOct 2025
Fresh Strawberries Fragrance Oil
★★★★☆
"Will buy more.. wonderful"
Punam SarmaVerified buyer · Dec 2024
Cinnamon Vanilla
★★★★★
"Cute jars, I like it."
AshwiniSep 2025
White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram
★★★★★
"My customer was very happy with this apple cinnamon fragrance.…"
PREETHI PRASATHVerified buyer · May 2026
Apple Cinnamon Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Good quality wood fragrance oil with a warm, long-lasting scent and strong performance in candles."
Payal PatelVerified buyer · Mar 2026
Woody Oud Fragrance Oil
★★★★★
"Highly recommended for candle making. Convenient to use."
Mohabatti Ki DukaanVerified buyer · Jan 2026
Mini Electric Wax Melter
★★★★★
"Absolutely loved it!! Smells so perfect!! Go for itt! Packing is done very carefully and happy for that!❤️"
Kavitha murthyOct 2025
Fresh Strawberries Fragrance Oil
Reviews collected and published through Judge.me on candlemakingsuppliesindia.store. One longer review is shortened with an ellipsis; wording is otherwise unedited.
✓ Every pack price published per variant ✓ Stated loads and temperatures per wax ✓ Bulk pricing & GST invoicing on WhatsApp
Candle Business Guides · The Cover Calculation
Add four terms, every one of them measured from your own records: lead time in weeks, the slip between your typical and worst wait, the extra a peak week consumes, and the gap until your next order. On this growing 450-candle business that comes to 5.03 weeks of cover on the shared wax line, with a reorder point at 3.03.
5.03 weeks
maximum cover on the 100%-shared wax line from this reader's own figures · reorder point 3.03 weeks · 50.8 kg to reorder, 84.3 kg at the top · 16.76 kg a week · CSI live pricing, September 2026
Quick answers — read this first
What is the formula? Cover (weeks) = lead-time weeks + lead-time slip + demand allowance + order cycle. The first three give your reorder point; adding the order cycle gives the maximum you will hold just after a delivery.Where do the numbers come from? All four from your own records: the replacement time you have measured, the longest one you have measured, your busiest recent week against your average, and how often you actually place orders. Nobody can supply those for you, and there is no standard figure to borrow.
What does it give on this range? Wax 3.03 to 5.03 weeks, wooden wicks 4.27 to 6.27, Cinnamon Vanilla 3.25 to 5.25, the 70 g votive jar 2.14 to 4.14. Four materials, four different answers, one formula.
What does growth change? Not the number of weeks — the quantity behind each week. At 7% a month, a reorder point left untouched for a year silently falls from 3.03 weeks of cover to 1.35, which is below the lead time. Recompute consumption monthly.
The short answer
Start from consumption, not from a target: grams per candle × candles per week, per material. On this range that is 16.76 kg of wax, 1,340.3 g of fragrance, 78.75 wooden wicks and 33.75 votive jars a week.
Build the reorder point from three terms: lead-time weeks, plus the slip between your typical and worst recorded wait, plus the lead time multiplied by how much a peak week exceeds your average.
Add your order cycle for the ceiling: if you only place orders fortnightly, the top of the saw-tooth is the reorder point plus two weeks — and that, not the reorder point, is the number your cash has to fund.
In this guide
Bar length is weeks. The three solid segments are what risk requires — your wait, the variability of that wait, and a busy week — and together they are the reorder point. The open segment is simply how long until you next place an order, which is the one term you can shorten by deciding to order more often.
3.03 wk reorder point · 50.8 kg
Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 · 10 kg ₹6,370
Longest logged wait · 6.27 wk ceiling
Performance Wooden Wicks · 100 for ₹4,130
Growing 7% a month?
Ask about recurring orders
Straight answer
How do I calculate how many weeks of raw-material inventory to hold as my candle business grows?
Build it from four terms you measure rather than borrow. Lead-time weeks = your own typical replacement time ÷ 7. Lead-time slip = (your worst recorded wait − your typical wait) ÷ 7. Demand allowance = lead-time weeks × (peak week ÷ average week − 1). Those three are the reorder point. Add your order cycle — the gap until you next place an order — and you have the maximum you hold, which is what your cash must fund. Worked on a business that has grown from 300 to 450 candles a month in six months, pouring 185 g of wax and 14.8 g of oil in its main format and 64.8 g and 5.18 g in a newer 70 g votive line: weekly consumption is 16.76 kg of CSI 468, 1,340.3 g of fragrance, 78.75 wooden wicks and 33.75 votive jars. With a logged 10-day typical wait, 17 days at worst, a 160-candle peak week against a 112.5 average and fortnightly ordering, the wax line comes out at 1.43 + 1.00 + 0.60 + 2.00 = 5.03 weeks — reorder at 50.8 kg, peak at 84.3 kg. Change one input and the answer changes honestly: on the wick line, where this reader has logged 14 and 24 days, the same formula gives 6.27 weeks. Growth does not add weeks; it raises the kilograms behind each week, so the consumption figure must be recomputed monthly. Leave it a year at 7% a month and a 3.03-week reorder point has quietly become 1.35 weeks — less than the lead time it was built to cover.
One line: reorder point = lead-time weeks + lead-time slip + peak-week allowance; maximum cover = that plus your order cycle; and every week of it is sized by a consumption figure you re-divide every month.
The 5.03-week wax ceiling on this range is 84.3 kg — eight 10 kg packs and one 5 kg of Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 at ₹54,145, with a stated up to 13% fragrance load and a 58–60°C pour.
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The formula, term by term
Every term defends against something specific. If you cannot say what a term is protecting you from, delete it.
The arithmetic is standard inventory practice, not a CSI method, and it is deliberately additive so you can see which risk each week of stock is buying. Nothing in it is a benchmark: there is no "right" number of weeks for a candle business, only the number your own four inputs produce.
The four terms
What each one defends against, how it is computed, and this reader's figure for the wax line
| Term | Defends against | Computed as | Wax line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead-time weeks | The simple fact that an order takes time to arrive | Your typical observed replacement time ÷ 7 | 10 ÷ 7 = 1.43 |
| Lead-time slip | The order that takes longer than usual | (Your worst recorded wait − your typical wait) ÷ 7 | (17 − 10) ÷ 7 = 1.00 |
| Demand allowance | A busy week landing inside the waiting period | Lead-time weeks × (peak week ÷ average week − 1) | 1.43 × (160 ÷ 112.5 − 1) = 0.60 |
| Reorder point | — | The three terms above, added | 3.03 weeks · 50.8 kg |
| Order cycle | Nothing — it is a consequence of how often you order | Weeks between the order points in your routine | 2.00 (fortnightly) |
| Maximum cover | — | Reorder point + order cycle | 5.03 weeks · 84.3 kg |
Three details make the difference between a formula that works and one that quietly fails. First, the demand allowance is multiplied by the lead time, not added to it — a busy week only hurts you while you are waiting, so a shorter wait needs a smaller allowance. Second, the slip uses your worst recorded wait, not an imagined one; if you have never recorded it, your safety stock is decoration. Third, the order cycle is the term you control. Moving from fortnightly to weekly ordering removes a full week of cover from every line at once — on this range that is about ₹17,138 of cash released across the four lines below, bought entirely with administrative effort.
Do not use an average lead time as if it were the whole story. If your typical wait is ten days and your worst is seventeen, planning on ten means that roughly whenever the slow case occurs you stop. The point of the slip term is that it converts a known irregularity into stock rather than into a crisis — and it must come from your own order history. CSI publishes no delivery times, no courier commitments and no dispatch promises, and neither this page nor any page in this series states one. Go through six months of your own orders, write down the longest gap you actually experienced, and use that.
The five inputs only you can measure
The formula is trivial. Collecting its inputs honestly is the work, and it is where almost everybody shortcuts. Here is the whole list, with where each one comes from and what happens when you guess it instead.
Inputs, sources and failure modes
What to measure, where it lives, and the cost of guessing
| Input | Where it comes from | This reader's figure | If you guess it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly units | Last month's actual units ÷ 4, or a three-month average | 450 a month → 112.5 a week | Every quantity downstream is wrong by the same factor |
| Per-candle consumption | Your own recipe, weighed — fill weight and load | 185 g + 14.8 g; votives 64.8 g + 5.18 g | Wax and oil targets drift; jars and wicks stay right, so the error hides |
| Typical replacement time | Your order history: order placed to stock on shelf | 10 days on wax and oil, 14 on wicks, 7 on jars | Reorder point too low — you discover it during a stoppage |
| Worst replacement time | The same history, the longest case you have lived through | 17 days on wax and oil, 24 on wicks, 12 on jars | Safety stock is arbitrary and usually too small |
| Peak week against average | Weekly unit counts over the last quarter | 160 against 112.5 — a ratio of 1.42 | You plan for the average and stop in the busy week |
Worked out above: 450 candles a month over four weeks = 112.5 a week, split 70% main format (78.75) and 30% votives (33.75). Wax = 78.75 × 185 g + 33.75 × 64.8 g = 14,568.75 g + 2,187 g = 16.76 kg a week. Fragrance = 78.75 × 14.8 g + 33.75 × 5.18 g = 1,165.5 g + 174.8 g = 1,340.3 g a week. Loads are 8% of total wax weight in both formats — 7.41% of the 199.8 g main candle and 7.40% of the 70 g votive. Wooden wicks go in the main format only (78.75 a week); the votive line uses Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1). A 3–5% planning allowance for spills and top-ups sits on top of the wax figure. Growth from 300 to 450 a month over six months is 6.99% a month, or 1.572% a week.
Measure the replacement time, not the delivery time
The number the formula needs is longer than any transit figure, because it starts the moment you should have ordered and ends when the material is usable. That includes the day you noticed, the evening you spent choosing between two waxes, the payment, the dispatch, the transit, and — on a new wax — the burn test you have to run before you can pour saleable candles. Makers who use a transit estimate in this formula get a reorder point that is correct for a world in which they are perfectly attentive. Use the gap you have actually lived through, repeatedly, from your own records.Four materials, worked end to end
Same formula, four lines, four different answers — which is the entire point. The materials differ in how long this reader waits for them, how variable that wait has been, and how spiky their own demand is. A single storeroom-wide week count would be wrong on all four simultaneously.
The full calculation · 450 candles a month · CSI live pricing, September 2026
Every term, the reorder point, the order quantity and the ceiling, in weeks and in packs
| Line | Weekly use | Lead · slip · demand | Reorder point | Order quantity | Maximum cover |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Premium Coconut Soy CSI 468 | 16.76 kg | 1.43 · 1.00 · 0.60 | 3.03 wk · 50.8 kg | 2 wk · 33.5 kg → 35 kg (₹22,295) | 5.03 wk · 84.3 kg → 85 kg (₹54,145) |
| Performance Wooden Wicks | 78.75 wicks | 2.00 · 1.43 · 0.84 | 4.27 wk · 336 wicks | 2 wk · 158 wicks → 200 (₹8,260) | 6.27 wk · 494 wicks → 500 (₹20,650) |
| Cinnamon Vanilla (35% of units) | 469.1 g | 1.43 · 1.00 · 0.82 | 3.25 wk · 1,524 g | 2 wk · 938 g → 1 kg (₹4,554.80) | 5.25 wk · 2,463 g → 2.5 kg (₹11,410.60) |
| White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram | 33.75 jars | 1.00 · 0.71 · 0.42 | 2.14 wk · 72 jars | 2 wk · 68 jars → 70 (₹2,230.20) | 4.14 wk · 140 jars → 140 (₹4,460.40) |
| All four at the ceiling | — | — | — | — | ₹90,666 |
Three things are worth reading off that table. The wick line needs the most cover and nobody would have guessed it — it is not the most expensive, not the largest by weight and not the most variable in demand; it simply has the longest and least reliable replacement time in this reader's own log. The jar line needs the least, for the mirror-image reason. And the fragrance line is the only one where pack granularity fights the answer: 2,463 g of cover on a scent whose largest listed pack is 1 kg means holding two kilo bottles and a 500 gm, because above a kilogram there is no listed pack to buy — recurring volumes beyond that are a WhatsApp quote, never a guessed price.
Rounding up to the next pack is a decision, not a rounding error — so price it. On the wick line, 494 wicks becomes five packs of 100: 500 wicks, 6.35 weeks rather than 6.27, at ₹20,650. That is nearly free because the ladder genuinely steps down — ₹41.30 a wick in the 100-pack against ₹59 in the 10-pack, so 500 wicks bought in 10-packs would cost ₹29,500, a difference of ₹8,850. On the wax line, 84.3 kg becomes 85 kg and costs ₹54,145, because CSI 468 is ₹637 a kilo at both 5 kg and 10 kg. On the fragrance line, rounding up means two kilo bottles plus a 500 gm — and there the kilo is the better per-gram buy by a small margin: ₹4,554.80 against ₹4,602 for two 500 gm bottles, a saving of ₹47.20. Check each ladder; they do not behave the same way.
Turning weeks into packs
Four cards, one per line in the calculation. Each table gives every listed pack, the per-unit price and how many of this range's candles that pack covers — which is how a weeks answer becomes an order.
1
3.03 to 5.03 weeks · 67.02 kg a month
Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 (Flakes)
The shared line in both formats and the largest number in the calculation. Its page states a fragrance load of up to 13%, a melting point of 50°C–53°C and a pour temperature of 58°C–60°C — markedly lower than most soy waxes, which matters for a growing workshop because a lower pour window shortens the cooling wait between batches. The 8%-of-wax-weight load used throughout sits well inside the stated ceiling. The ladder steps down once and then stops: ₹650 a kilo at 1 kg, ₹637 at 5 kg and 10 kg, with the page's own text listing 0.5, 1, 5 and 10 kg formats. There is no 25 kg pack, so a 5.03-week ceiling of 84.3 kg is eight 10 kg bags and a 5 kg — and at that volume a recurring-order conversation is worth having.
| Size | Price | Per kg | 185 g candles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 500 g | ₹325 | ₹650 | ≈2 |
| 1 kg | ₹650 | ₹650 | ≈5 |
| 5 kg | ₹3,185 | ₹637 | ≈27 |
| 10 kg | ₹6,370 | ₹637 | ≈54 |
₹117.85 of wax per 185 g candle at ₹637 a kilo Buy CSI 468
2
4.27 to 6.27 weeks · the longest logged wait
Performance Wooden Wicks (Imported)
The line the formula flags hardest, purely on replacement time. Its page states that one pack contains 10 wicks and wick tabs, and it is one of the few CSI lines with a genuine volume ladder: ₹59 a wick at 10, ₹47.20 at 50 and ₹41.30 at 100, the pack titles carrying the savings as published. That matters here because the calculation already tells you to hold nearly 500 — so the deep cover the lead time demands is also the cheap way to buy them, which is an unusually comfortable coincidence. It is an imported line, which is part of why this reader's own log shows a longer and less predictable wait than on wax; your figures may differ, and they are the ones to use.
| Size | Price | Per piece | Candles covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pack of 10 | ₹590 | ₹59 | ≈10 |
| Pack of 50 (Save 25%) | ₹2,360 | ₹47.20 | ≈50 |
| Pack of 100 (Save 30%) | ₹4,130 | ₹41.30 | ≈100 |
₹41.30 a wick at 100 · 500 wicks is 6.35 weeks for ₹20,650 Buy wooden wicks
3
3.25 to 5.25 weeks · 35% of units · 1,876.5 g a month
Cinnamon Vanilla
The scent that carries just over a third of the range, and the line where the formula collides with the pack ladder. Its own demand is spikier than the range average — this reader logs weeks between 30 and 62 units against an average of 39.375 — so its demand allowance is 0.82 weeks against the wax line's 0.60, and its ceiling lands at 2,463 g. A kilogram is the largest listed pack anywhere in the CSI fragrance range, so that ceiling is two kilo bottles and a 500 gm. The ladder rewards the kilo narrowly: ₹4.5548 a gram at 1 kg against ₹4.602 at 500 gm — ₹47.20 on a kilo. Punam Sarma's review reads: "Will buy more.. wonderful."
| Size | Price | Per 100g | 185 g candles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 gm | ₹106.20 | ₹708 | ≈1 |
| 50 gm | ₹271.40 | ₹542.80 | ≈3 |
| 100 gm | ₹483.80 | ₹483.80 | ≈6 |
| 500 gm | ₹2,301 | ₹460.20 | ≈33 |
| 1 kg | ₹4,554.80 | ₹455.48 | ≈67 |
₹67.41 of Cinnamon Vanilla per 185 g candle at the 1 kg rate Buy Cinnamon Vanilla
4
2.14 to 4.14 weeks · the shortest logged wait
White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram
The newest line in this range and, by the formula, the one needing least cover — a seven-day typical wait and a twelve-day worst case produce a reorder point of just 2.14 weeks, which is 72 jars. Listed at ₹31.86 a jar in packs of five and ten, flat at both. At 33.75 a week the whole 4.14-week ceiling is 140 jars and ₹4,460.40, which is a reminder that a short, reliable replacement time is worth real money: the same line on the wick line's timings would need 211 jars instead. Ashwini's review: "Cute jars, I like it." For a matching 70 g clear vessel the Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram states a ~70 g wax fill at the same ₹31.86.
| Size | Price | Per piece | Votives covered |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pack of 5 | ₹159.30 | ₹31.86 | ≈5 |
| Pack of 10 | ₹318.60 | ₹31.86 | ≈10 |
₹31.86 a jar · the full ceiling is ₹4,460.40 Buy the 70 g votive jar
Priced above: Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 500 g ₹325, 1 kg ₹650, 5 kg ₹3,185, 10 kg ₹6,370 (₹650 and ₹637 per kg) · Performance Wooden Wicks pack of 10 ₹590, pack of 50 ₹2,360, pack of 100 ₹4,130 (₹59, ₹47.20 and ₹41.30 a wick) · Cinnamon Vanilla 15 gm ₹106.20, 50 gm ₹271.40, 100 gm ₹483.80, 500 gm ₹2,301, 1 kg ₹4,554.80 · White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram pack of 5 ₹159.30, pack of 10 ₹318.60 (₹31.86 each) · Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram pack of 10 ₹318.60 · Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) ₹5.90 each at every pack.
What growth actually changes
This is the part of the question that trips up every growing candle business, and the answer is narrower than people expect. Growth does not change the number of weeks. Your lead time has not changed, your worst case has not changed, your order cycle has not changed. What changes is the quantity behind each week — and because the reorder point is written down in kilograms on a shelf label, it rots silently while looking perfectly healthy.
A 50.8 kg reorder point left alone · growth of 6.99% a month
What a fixed quantity is actually covering as consumption rises
| Time since last recalculation | Weekly consumption | 50.8 kg now covers | Against a 1.43-week lead time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day one | 16.76 kg | 3.03 weeks | Comfortable |
| One month | 17.83 kg | 2.85 weeks | Still comfortable |
| Two months | 18.98 kg | 2.67 weeks | Safety stock eroding |
| One quarter | 20.52 kg | 2.47 weeks | Slip protection nearly gone |
| Six months | 25.13 kg | 2.02 weeks | Only the typical case is covered |
| One year | 37.70 kg | 1.35 weeks | Below the lead time — a stock-out is now routine |
Nothing went wrong in that table. Nobody made a bad decision, no supplier let anyone down, and every weekly stock count showed a number comfortably above the trigger written on the label. The business simply grew, and the trigger did not. That is why the one maintenance task this system genuinely needs is re-dividing last month's units by four and re-multiplying the five quantities — five minutes, once a month, on the same day as your accounts.
Write triggers in weeks on the sheet and in quantities on the shelf
Keep both. The sheet holds the policy — "3.03 weeks of wax, 4.27 weeks of wicks" — because weeks survive growth. The shelf label holds the number someone can act on at nine in the morning — "reorder at 51 kg" — because nobody converts weeks in their head while holding a melting pot. When you recompute monthly, the sheet stays the same and only the labels change, which makes it obvious that the maintenance is arithmetic rather than a policy decision. A growing business that gets this wrong usually has the policy in its head and the quantity on the wall, and only the wall is ever read.A fortnight's order on this range: 35 kg of CSI 468 at ₹22,295, 200 Performance Wooden Wicks at ₹8,260, 1 kg of Cinnamon Vanilla at ₹4,554.80 and 70 votive jars at ₹2,230.20. For recurring volumes, bulk pricing, GST invoicing, MSDS and IFRA documentation are handled directly on WhatsApp.
Ask about recurring orders
Building the calculator once
One sheet, six columns of inputs and four of outputs. Build it once and it answers the question for every material you will ever add, including the ones you have not bought yet.
1
One row per material, and six input columnsWeekly units of the SKUs that use it, quantity per candle, typical replacement time in days, worst replacement time in days, peak-week units, average-week units. Six numbers. Every one of them comes from your own records, and the sheet is useless until all six are real.
2
Compute weekly consumption in the material's own unitWeekly units × quantity per candle. For a material used in more than one format, sum the formats: 78.75 × 185 g + 33.75 × 64.8 g = 16.76 kg of wax a week. For a fragrance used in several SKUs, sum those SKUs rather than taking a share of the total — aggregation errors here are the commonest cause of an oil running out while the sheet says it is fine.
3
Compute the three risk terms, then add themLead ÷ 7, (worst − typical) ÷ 7, and (lead ÷ 7) × (peak ÷ average − 1). Add for the reorder point in weeks, then multiply by weekly consumption for the reorder point in kilograms, grams or pieces. On the wax line: 1.43 + 1.00 + 0.60 = 3.03 weeks × 16.76 kg = 50.8 kg.
4
Add your order cycle and convert the ceiling into packsReorder point + order cycle = maximum cover. Multiply out, then round up to the next listed pack and record both the rounded quantity and what it costs: 84.3 kg becomes 85 kg of CSI 468 at ₹54,145, and 494 wooden wicks becomes 500 at ₹20,650. Rounding direction is a judgement: round up on the lines that sit in every candle, down on the lines used by one SKU.
5
Total the ceiling column and sanity-check it against your cashAll four lines at their ceilings is ₹90,666 here. If that is more than you are willing to have standing still, the honest lever is the order cycle: ordering weekly instead of fortnightly removes one week from every line, and it costs administration rather than risk. Cutting the risk terms instead is just deciding to stop occasionally without saying so.
6
Recompute column one monthly and the risk terms quarterlyMonthly: re-divide last month's units by four, let the sheet re-multiply, and change the shelf labels. Quarterly: revisit the typical and worst replacement times and the peak-to-average ratio, because both change as you grow — a bigger order can behave differently from a small one, and a busier season widens the spread. Write the date of each recalculation on the sheet so you can see when it last happened.
The CSI principle
Weeks come from your lead time. Kilograms come from your growth. Confuse the two and the shelf label lies to you for a year.
The policy is stable and the quantity is not. A business doubling in a year will keep exactly the same number of weeks in its plan and double every number on its shelf labels — and the only reason that feels surprising is that most makers write down the kilograms and keep the weeks in their head.
Where the formula stops helping
Three situations break it, and knowing them is part of using it well. In each case the formula is not wrong — it is answering a question you are no longer asking.
First, a confirmed bulk order. Once an order is accepted, its materials are committed rather than available, and a cover figure computed against average consumption will happily let you promise the same 50 kg twice. Check materials against the free balance — on hand minus committed — before you confirm a date. Second, a seasonal peak, where consumption for a known period is not a growth trend but a planned spike. There you work backwards from the pour date through the cure to the order date rather than forwards from an average: a 14 to 21 day cure for soy containers, with Diwali 2026 on 8 November, puts the materials order well before the month you would naively pick. Third, a new material, where you have no lead-time history and no demand history, so three of the four terms are unavailable. Buy a small quantity, log the replacement time, and run the formula on the second order rather than the first.
Do not let a one-off spike become a permanent allowance. The demand term uses your peak week against your average because that is a recurring pattern — the busy end of a normal month. A single extraordinary week, a wedding order or a corporate run, is not variability, it is an event, and feeding it into the ratio inflates every line at once. On this range the peak-to-average ratio is 1.42 and produces 0.60 of a week on the wax line; a single 320-candle week in the data would make that ratio 2.84 and the allowance 2.63 weeks, adding about ₹21,686 of wax to the shelf for something that happened once. Handle large one-off orders as committed materials bought against the order, and keep them out of the average entirely.
Four numbers from your own records beat any benchmark you can borrow.
— CandleMakingSuppliesIndia
Why trust this guide
CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA supplies raw materials, not finished candles. The easy version of this page would assert that candle businesses hold six weeks of everything, which would be flattering to us and useless to you. There is no such figure, and we have not invented one: every week count here is derived from four inputs the example reader measured, and swapping those inputs changes the answer from 2.14 weeks on one line to 6.27 on another in the same workshop.
Every price, pack size and stated specification comes from live CSI stock in September 2026 and links to the product page, where current pricing is always authoritative. Specifications are quoted only where the page states them — up to 13% fragrance load, a 50°C–53°C melting point and a 58°C–60°C pour temperature on CSI 468; ten wicks and wick tabs per pack on Performance Wooden Wicks. Loads are wax formulation limits, not regulatory limits, and the 8%-of-wax-weight figure used here sits inside the stated ceiling.
Every lead time on this page is the reader's own logged figure. CSI publishes no delivery times, couriers, dispatch commitments or stock guarantees, and nothing here should be read as one. Unit volumes, growth rate, scent shares, peak weeks and order cadence are likewise the example business's figures and must be replaced with yours. For recurring-order pricing, GST invoicing, MSDS or IFRA documentation, message us on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.
Frequently asked questions
What is the formula for weeks of raw-material inventory?
Reorder point in weeks = lead time ÷ 7, plus (worst lead time − typical lead time) ÷ 7, plus (lead time ÷ 7) × (peak week ÷ average week − 1). Add your ordering cycle to get the maximum you will hold. On the worked example: 1.43 + 1.00 + 0.60 = 3.03 weeks to reorder, and 5.03 weeks at the top of the cycle. Multiply each by weekly consumption to get kilograms, grams or pieces.
How many weeks of stock should a candle business hold?
Whatever your four inputs produce — and they produce different answers for different materials in the same workshop. Here the same formula gives 4.14 weeks on the votive jar and 6.27 on the wooden wick, because this reader's logged replacement time on the wick line is twice as long and twice as variable. Anyone quoting a single industry figure is guessing; use your own order history instead, and recompute the quantities as you grow.
Does a growing business need more weeks of cover?
No — it needs the same weeks and more kilograms. Growth does not lengthen your lead time or widen your lead-time variability, so the week count is unchanged. What changes is weekly consumption, so every quantity derived from it rises. The danger is purely administrative: a 50.8 kg trigger left alone through a year of 6.99% monthly growth covers 1.35 weeks by the end, below the lead time it was built for, while every count looks fine.
How do I handle demand variability without over-buying?
Multiply the variability by the lead time, not by the whole cover period. A peak week only threatens you while you are waiting for a delivery, so the allowance is lead-time weeks × (peak ÷ average − 1) — on this range 1.43 × 0.42 = 0.60 of a week on wax, and 1.43 × 0.57 = 0.82 on Cinnamon Vanilla, whose own weekly spread is wider. And keep genuine one-off orders out of the average: they are committed materials, not variability.
Can I reduce inventory without increasing stock-out risk?
Yes, in one place: order more often. The order-cycle term is the only one of the four that is not protecting you against anything — it exists because you are not at the keyboard every day. Moving from fortnightly to weekly ordering removes a full week of cover from every line simultaneously, releasing about ₹17,138 across the four lines here, at the cost of twice as many purchase orders. Cutting the risk terms instead just hides the decision to stop occasionally.
What if I have no lead-time history for a material?
Then three of the four terms do not exist yet, and you should not pretend otherwise. Buy a small listed pack, record the date you decided to order and the date the material was usable — including any burn test a new wax or wick needs before you can pour saleable candles — and run the formula properly on the second order. Until then, hold conservatively and check the line weekly. The first order is for learning your own replacement time; it is not the one to size a policy from.
Four terms, measured not borrowed
3.03 weeks to reorder, 5.03 at the ceiling — and a consumption figure you re-divide every month.
Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 ₹325 for 500 g, ₹650 for 1 kg, ₹3,185 for 5 kg, ₹6,370 for 10 kg · Performance Wooden Wicks ₹590 for 10, ₹2,360 for 50, ₹4,130 for 100 · Cinnamon Vanilla 500 gm ₹2,301, 1 kg ₹4,554.80 · White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram ₹318.60 for ten. Message us for recurring-order pricing, GST invoicing and documentation.
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Continue the read
- Kilograms, units, rupees or weeks — which unit should the target use?
- Avoiding stock-outs without lakhs sitting on shelves
- Production-critical versus reorder-when-needed materials
- Twenty raw materials, five critical — should the shared ones come first?
- How early should candle brands order fragrance oils for Diwali?
- How much fragrance oil does a candle business need?
- The 12-month candle business calendar
Editorial standards & sources
About this guide: Written by the CANDLEMAKINGSUPPLIESINDIA team. The reorder-point and cover formulas are standard inventory practice, not CSI claims; product recommendations reflect the CSI range, and the arithmetic applies to any supplier.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 and otherwise unedited.
Figures verified September 2026: Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 500 g ₹325, 1 kg ₹650, 5 kg ₹3,185, 10 kg ₹6,370 — ₹650 per kg at 500 g and 1 kg, ₹637 at 5 kg and 10 kg; stated fragrance load up to 13%, melting point 50°C–53°C, pour temperature 58°C–60°C, suitable for single-pour container applications, with the page's own text listing 0.5, 1, 5 and 10 kg formats. Performance Wooden Wicks (Imported) pack of 10 ₹590, pack of 50 ₹2,360, pack of 100 ₹4,130 — ₹59, ₹47.20 and ₹41.30 a wick, with the savings carried in the pack titles as published; the page states one pack contains 10 wicks and wick tabs. Cinnamon Vanilla 15 gm ₹106.20, 50 gm ₹271.40, 100 gm ₹483.80, 500 gm ₹2,301, 1 kg ₹4,554.80 — ₹4.602 and ₹4.5548 per gram at the two largest packs, so a kilo saves ₹47.20 against two 500 gm bottles; 1 kg is the largest listed fragrance pack across the range. White Matte Votive Jar 70 gram pack of 5 ₹159.30, pack of 10 ₹318.60 — ₹31.86 each; Clear Glass Votive Jar 70 gram pack of 10 ₹318.60, stated capacity ~70 g wax fill. Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1) ₹5.90 each at every pack from 10 to 1,000. Example assumptions, not CSI claims: 450 candles a month, grown from 300 six months earlier (6.99% a month, 1.572% a week), four weeks to a month, so 112.5 candles a week split 70% main format (78.75) and 30% votives (33.75); main candle 185 g of wax + 14.8 g of oil (8% of total wax weight, 7.41% of the 199.8 g finished candle), votive 64.8 g + 5.18 g (8% of wax weight, 7.40% of the 70 g finished candle); wooden wicks in the main format only, Eco C1 wicks in the votive line; Cinnamon Vanilla at 35% of units, its own weekly range 30 to 62 against an average of 39.375; one wick and one jar per single-wick candle; a 3–5% planning allowance on wax for spills and top-ups sits on top of the consumption figures. Weekly consumption: wax 78.75 × 185 g + 33.75 × 64.8 g = 16.76 kg; fragrance 78.75 × 14.8 g + 33.75 × 5.18 g = 1,340.3 g, of which Cinnamon Vanilla 469.1 g; wooden wicks 78.75; votive jars 33.75. Formula terms per line — wax: lead 10 days (1.43 wk), worst 17 days (slip 1.00), peak 160 against 112.5 (allowance 0.60), reorder 3.03 wk / 50.8 kg, order cycle 2 wk, ceiling 5.03 wk / 84.3 kg rounded to 85 kg at ₹54,145. Wooden wicks: lead 14 days (2.00), worst 24 days (slip 1.43), allowance 0.84, reorder 4.27 wk / 336 wicks, ceiling 6.27 wk / 494 wicks rounded to 500 at ₹20,650 (against ₹29,500 in 10-packs). Cinnamon Vanilla: lead 10 days, worst 17 days, allowance 0.82, reorder 3.25 wk / 1,524 g, ceiling 5.25 wk / 2,463 g rounded to 2.5 kg at ₹11,410.60. White Matte Votive Jar: lead 7 days (1.00), worst 12 days (slip 0.71), peak 48 against 33.75 (allowance 0.42), reorder 2.14 wk / 72 jars, ceiling 4.14 wk / 140 jars at ₹4,460.40. All four ceilings = ₹90,666; one week removed from all four by weekly rather than fortnightly ordering ≈ ₹17,138. Growth erosion of the fixed 50.8 kg trigger: 2.85 weeks after one month, 2.67 after two, 2.47 after a quarter, 2.02 after six months, 1.35 after a year. All lead times, worst cases, peak weeks, growth rates and order cadences are the reader's own logged figures. CSI publishes no delivery times, couriers or dispatch promises. Cure of 14–21 days for soy container candles is standard practice; Diwali 2026 falls on 8 November 2026. Prices and availability change — the linked product pages are always authoritative.