I Need 100 Candles at 10% Fragrance Load — How Much Additional Fragrance Oil Should I Purchase Compared with an 8% Formula?

The additional oil, measured three ways

The title gives the count and both loads; it does not give the candle weight, so this page uses 200 g as a labelled working figure, as the rest of the series does. Load is a share of the finished candle: a 200 g candle at 8% holds 16 g of oil and 184 g of wax; at 10% it holds 20 g of oil and 180 g of wax. Each candle gains 4 g of oil and loses 4 g of wax. Multiply by 100 and the extra purchase is 400 g of oil, or 25% more than the 8% formula.

So there are three honest answers to "how much additional oil": 4 g per candle, 400 g on the net batch, and 453.6 g once the same allowances are carried on the larger load. The third is the one to buy, because test candles, rejects and the oil left in the jug all scale with the load. The bottle count moves by more than the grams — 450 g — because the extra lands on the step between bottle sizes. The 6%-versus-8% page runs the step below this one.

First check that 10% is allowed in your wax

A 10% formula is only an option in a wax whose maker states a ceiling at or above 10%. Those ceilings are formulation limits published by the wax maker, not regulatory figures and not targets. CSI's soy-wax product pages state three of them; the fourth container wax has none published.

This page uses Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 because its product page states both a 13% ceiling and handling figures — melting point 50–53°C and pour at 58–60°C — so a 10% formula sits three points inside the maker's limit with instructions you can follow. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks also states 13% and is a reasonable alternative. Nothing here says either throws better at 10%; CSI publishes no throw data for any wax. The choice between them belongs to a side-by-side test, not to this page.

Rounding the extra to real CSI bottles

Saffron Cedarwood Fragrance Oil is listed at 15 g ₹103.84, 50 g ₹354.00, 100 g ₹696.20, 500 g ₹2,584.20 and 1 kg ₹6,867.60, all in stock on the 4 October 2026 re-check. Per gram: ₹6.92, ₹7.08, ₹6.96, ₹5.17 and ₹6.87. The 500 g bottle is the cheapest gram on the listing by a wide margin, and the 1 kg bottle is 33% dearer per gram than it. So the rounding below never uses a 1 kg bottle, and it should not: buying the 10% quantity as 2 × 1 kg + small bottles instead would cost ₹3,398.40 more (2 × 1 kg + 3 × 100 g at ₹15,823.80).

Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 rounds in the opposite direction. At 8% the stack needs 20,865.6 g: 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 1 kg for ₹13,390.00. At 10% it needs 20,412.0 g: 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 500 g for ₹13,065.00. The higher load saves one 500 g bag's difference, ₹325.00. CSI 468 is ₹650.00 a kilo at 500 g and 1 kg and ₹637.00 at 5 and 10 kg, so the two 10 kg bags carry the small bulk step and the top-up bag does not.

Buy 10% up front, or 8% now and top up later?

Many makers do not know yet whether they need 10%. They plan at 8% and keep the option of going higher. That is sensible, but the top-up is not free: the extra oil is bought in smaller bottles after the fact, and the 8% order may already have rounded up past what it needed. For Saffron Cedarwood, the 8% order buys 1,850 g; the 10% need is 2,268.0 g, so the top-up is 418.0 g — bought as 1 × 500 g for ₹2,584.20. The two routes compare like this:

Route B costs ₹354.00 more if you end up at 10%, and ₹2,230.20 less if 8% passes. Route A only wins when you are already confident 10% is the formula. One more consideration points the same way: a top-up bottle may come from a different lot from the first bottles, so blend the lots or keep candles from each lot separate until you have checked they match. CSI publishes no lot-consistency data; record the order date on each bottle.

Across these eight oils the additional spend for 10% runs from ₹1,482.08 (Honeydew Melon) to ₹2,701.00 (Spicy Raspberry). The top-up penalty depends almost entirely on where the 8% order's rounding left you: where the 8% bottles already overshot, the top-up is small; where the extra has to be bought as a fresh 500 g bottle, it is larger. The minimum-leftover post is the place to go if you want to engineer that remainder rather than accept it.

The complete CSI order at 8% and 10%

Everything except wax and oil is identical at both loads: one jar, one wick and one sticker per candle poured, plus labelled spares. Jars are White Matte Glass Jar — CSI does not publish its fill weight, so weigh a test pour before ordering for 200 g. Wicks are Eco Candle Wicks Thin C1 as the example; a 10% candle may need a different wick from an 8% one, and CSI publishes no wick size per diameter, which is one reason the production wick waits for the test.

The six-candle test that decides the extra purchase

After the test, the split is simple. Buy now: the CSI 468 wax (buy the 8% quantity, 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 1 kg; it covers 10% with 588.0 g to spare), the jars and the stickers. Buy after the test: the production oil at the load that passed, and the production wicks once the wick has passed a full burn at that load. The burn-test budget post prices a fuller test programme, and the wick sample-ladder post covers testing wicks at the same time.

The CSI products in this order

Related 100-candle shopping lists

This page owns the extra purchase for 10% over 8%. 100 oud candles at 10% owns getting a 10% formula right without overfilling; 6% versus 8% owns the step below; buying for 105 or 110 owns the size of the buffer; two fragrances, one wax pack owns sharing wax between oils; and the 100-candle template pulls every line into one sheet. For bigger runs, 1,000 candles at 10% scales the same arithmetic.

Frequently asked questions