I Have an 8.5 cm Diameter Soy Candle — Should I Start with One Larger Wick or Test a Double-Wick Configuration as Well?

Order A or order B: the two buy lists side by side

Both orders below are complete for their own test. The 250 g fill is our labelled worked example for a jar this size; weigh your own fill line and keep the load at 8% of total candle weight, CSI's convention: 20 g of oil + 230 g of wax per candle. Your 8.5 cm jars are the one line we cannot price: CSI lists no jar at that width.

Read across the wick row first. Order B's wicks cost ₹118.00 more than order A's, and that ₹118.00 is 8.1% of the extra cash. The rest buys six more candles: 120 g of oil, 1,380 g of wax, and fixtures to hold six pairs straight while they set. If you already own the wax and the oil, the double arm costs you one wick pack and six jars.

One gap to know before you pay: wax for a re-pour. Order B leaves 240 g of CSI 464, one candle's worth; a three-candle re-pour of a split rung needs 690 g. Add a 500 g bag (₹260.00) only when a rung actually splits, not up front. If your deadline will not wait for a second delivery, swap the C2 10 for the C2 20 (₹188.80) as well: it leaves 11 C2, enough to re-pour three 2 × C2 candles.

The ordering rule: when Cotton Braided is the top of your single ladder

CSI's tabbed, ready-to-use wicks are three: Eco C1, Eco C2 and Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made. There is no sized, tabbed wick between C2 and Cotton Braided and none above Cotton Braided. Around them sit unsized braid you cut to length and one wooden-wick listing with no widths. So a single-wick ladder at CSI can step up only twice. For an 8.5 cm jar that matters, because the single you expect to win is the top step.

Why Cotton Braided is the expected winner here, as judgement and not a verdict: an 8.5 cm inside diameter melts 56.75 cm², 12.9% more than the 8 cm jar in the cluster hub (50.27 cm²); Cotton Braided's own page draws its line at "exceeding 8 cm"; and oud and patchouli belong to the heavier, resinous group commonly linked to needing more wick. None of that is a burn result. CSI publishes no measured wick data for any oil, and no chart can see your jar.

Which diameter did you measure?

The rule turns on the inside diameter. If your 8.5 cm is the outside of the glass, a 0.35 cm wall (our labelled assumption) leaves about 7.8 cm inside: 47.78 cm², and reading it as the inside overstates the pool by 19%. That jar is closer to the 8 cm hub's case, where C2 is a live candidate and Cotton Braided is still a step above. Measure inside edge to inside edge at the rim, the middle and near the base before you choose an order; the method is the external versus internal diameter post, and the full pre-order checklist is the spec sheet post.

And what about a C1 single? In the 8 cm hub it is the low anchor. At 8.5 cm the double arm takes that job: if 2 × C1 runs hot and C2 single tunnels, the bracket is closed from both sides without a C1 single. If you want the extra evidence, the C1 20-pack already holds the wicks; three more candles cost ₹639.68 in materials (₹213.23 each) and use the 60 g of Woody Oud that order B keeps back for a re-pour, so add a 50 g bottle (₹271.40) if you go that way.

What the double arm really adds: wicks, candles, holders, days

Separate cash out of the door from materials actually burned. Cash is what the order costs; consumed materials are what the test uses, leaving the rest of each pack on your shelf.

Oil and wax are 93.1% of what the double arm burns; the twelve wicks are the rest. Each candle carries ₹207.33 of oil and wax before it gets a wick, so the wick choice moves a candle's cost by a few rupees at most. A 2 × C1 candle (₹219.13) is actually ₹0.20 cheaper than a Cotton Braided candle (₹219.33); a 2 × C2 candle is ₹6.88 dearer. All per-candle figures exclude your jar, labour, freight, packaging and GST.

The day count is the hidden line

In the diagram's worked example, the singles pour on day 0, cure for three days (the Woody Oud page: "Cure soy wax candles for 48-72 hours before burn testing"), and burn one 3–4 hour session a day. Burn 3 is read on day 6. If Cotton Braided leaves a ring and only then you order a C1 pack, the order, a five-day delivery (your figure, not ours: CSI dispatches from Pune and publishes no lead times), a second cure and three more burns put the pairs' burn-3 read on day 17. Pour both arms together and both are read on day 6. Diwali is 38 days from 1 October 2026; eleven days is more than a quarter of that.

The rough rule of thumb of an hour per 2.5 cm of width puts a first full pool at about 3.4 hours for 8.5 cm, inside the commonly quoted 3–4 hours. So a 3–4 hour session is the right length for both arms; shorter sessions will make every configuration look like it tunnels.

Holding a pair at 8.5 cm, and the holder's 9 cm limit

Where the two wicks sit is geometry, not a burn prediction. For a starting point (our judgement), two wicks 4.2 cm apart on a diameter of an 8.5 cm inside jar sit 2.15 cm from the glass and each has 28.37 cm² to melt, against 4.25 cm and 56.75 cm² for a single centred wick. How to move them from there is the double-wick spacing post; this page only needs the fixture to hold that spacing through the pour.

If the Steel Wick Holder's outer holes land within a few millimetres of your planned spacing and it spans your rim, it is the cleanest fixture for production, because every candle gets the same spacing. If not, a sticker on each tab placed through a paper template, plus two sticks, holds the pair just as well for a test. A centring fault looks like a wick fault on burn 1, which is why fixtures are bought before wicks in the bent-wick post.

Pour and read both arms in one batch

Label the bases C2-a to CB-c and 2C1-a to 2C2-c. Same wax bag, same oil bottle, same jar batch, same fill, same cure, same room.

A centre that melts well with a thick ring left at the edge is the case the 8.5 cm ring decision tree reads in detail; a pair that melts the surface very fast is the single-lit diagnostic. This page owns only the purchase consequence: no production order until all three candles of one configuration pass the full life. How far down "full life" means is the acceptance-depth post.

From the winning arm to a production order

Once one configuration passes the full life, size the order from your own volume: wicks = candles × wicks per candle × (1 + allowance). The 5% allowance and 160 candles a month are our worked example; the formula and the two approval gates are set out in the cluster hub. Because C1, C2 and Cotton Braided are flat per wick, choose packs that add up to the count and stop.

The wick bill hardly separates Cotton Braided from 2 × C1; 2 × C2 adds ₹1,155.84 a month over Cotton Braided here. What separates them in production is the second wick: twice the setting, twice the sticking, twice the trimming instruction for your customer. Weigh that labour with the scorecard post before you commit. Next to ₹14,499.84 of oil a month, the wicks are small either way.

Reorder point for a 2 × C1 winner, worked example: 11.2 wicks a day × a 12-day order-to-bench time + 7 days of safety stock = reorder at 213 wicks. The 12 days is your figure; confirm dispatch with us on WhatsApp before a big run. Per-SKU reorder points for a mixed range are the 500-candles-a-month reorder post.

What to buy for the two-arm order, and what to skip

Five items, in the order the two-arm test needs them, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. Nothing here is ranked on burn performance: CSI publishes no wick-performance data. Oil candle counts use 20 g per 250 g candle and 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for this test: Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10, ₹59.00 a wick): one listing with no widths, and CSI does not sell a wider wooden wick, so it cannot form either arm. Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m) and the Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82): unsized, cut to length; they belong to the in-between case, not a first order. Eco Candle Wicks Loose: its page describes it for "2 inch diameters", far below 8.5 cm. And the Apothecary Dome Lid jar is about 10 cm across on its page, not 8.5 cm: do not buy it as a stand-in for your jar.

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