How Do I Create an Incoming Fragrance Oil QC Procedure for Appearance, Odour, Batch Identity and Supplier Documentation?

What incoming QC is for — and what it is not

An incoming fragrance-oil procedure has four questions to answer before any oil is released to production. Is this the oil we ordered? Does it look as it should? Does it smell as it should, compared with our approved reference? Do we hold the documents we need for it? Everything else — hot throw, wick behaviour, discolouration in wax, storage stability — belongs to candle testing, which you run when a new lot or a doubtful result calls for it.

Keeping the procedure to these four checks matters. A gate that takes half a day will be skipped on a busy Diwali week. A gate that takes fifteen focused minutes per lot, with a written record, will actually be used. The procedure below is written so that one trained person can complete it at the receiving bench.

Throughout, use a worked delivery as the example: three 1 kg packs of CSI Blue Ocean, invoiced at 3 × ₹4,956.00 = ₹14,868.00. That is the money the gate protects, before you count the wax, jars and labour that a bad lot would waste.

Step zero: a quarantine shelf

Nothing reaches the production area until it has passed the gate. Set aside a clearly marked quarantine shelf or box — cool, out of sunlight, away from the melter — where incoming oil waits. A simple coloured tag on each pack works: red for quarantine, green for released, and a third colour for rejected or awaiting supplier reply.

The four checks, in order

Then the paperwork check, which some makers run first: confirm that you hold the IFRA certificate and the MSDS for this oil. CSI states its oils are IFRA certified and that IFRA and MSDS documents are available on WhatsApp request (+91 7397976926). Request them for the oil — and ask whether they apply to the lot you received — and file them with the lot record.

The incoming checklist as a table

Keep one completed checklist per lot, stapled or scanned with the invoice. When a customer complaint arrives months later, the lot number on the checklist is what lets you connect a candle back to an oil.

Handling the grey results

Cloudy oil after cool transit

Some fragrance materials thicken or come partly out of solution when cold. That is often physical and reversible. Place the closed bottle in warm water, let it warm through, mix it thoroughly and recheck clarity. Never heat oil over a flame, on a stove, in a kitchen oven or in a microwave. If the haze does not clear, or the oil separates into layers or shows sediment, keep it in quarantine and ask the supplier.

Darker than the reference

Some oils darken with age, and vanillin-containing oils are known to darken and to colour wax. On Blue Ocean the product page lists 0% vanillin, but colour can still vary. Darker colour alone does not prove the oil is unusable; it is a signal to make confirmation candles and compare odour, burn and wax colour before production use.

Smells slightly different

If blind strips separate the new lot from the reference consistently, do not release on the strength of a bottle test. Move the lot to confirmation candles and judge it in wax. A difference you notice on a strip may or may not show in a cured candle — and only the candle is what your customer buys.

Documents, records and what to ask the supplier

Documentation is part of QC, not an afterthought. For each oil you should hold the IFRA certificate and the MSDS, and for each lot the invoice, the lot number and your completed checklist. CSI's fragrance-oil pages publish no shelf life, storage temperature or ageing data — so storage guidance is something you request, not something you assume. Ask for it per oil and per lot, and keep the reply in writing. Do not copy the 60-month shelf life stated on CSI 464 and CSI 468 onto an oil or a candle; that statement concerns the wax.

The procedure costs you minutes per lot. Against ₹14,868.00 of Blue Ocean, or against the hundreds of candles that three kilograms of oil will scent, it is the cheapest quality step in the business.

Two last habits make the gate stick. Train a second person to run it, so it does not depend on one nose being in the building. And review the checklist after any complaint or rejected lot — if a problem got through, add the check that would have caught it, rather than adding paperwork that catches nothing.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page answers one fragrance-ageing decision; these cover the neighbouring questions:

Three things to buy for this decision

Frequently asked questions