I Need 500 Sculptural Wedding Candles — How Do I Calculate Mould Quantity as Well as Wax, Fragrance and Wick Requirements?

Your order as numbers, starting with one weighed piece

The title gives one figure, and it is yours: 500 sculptural candles. The rest is a worked example. The client has chosen a couple figure for the reception tables, poured in CSI’s Love Couple Candle Silicon Mould. The mould page states no cavity weight, so you poured one piece and weighed it: 140 g. Scented with British Rose at 8% (11.2 g oil + 128.8 g wax, total-weight basis) in Soy Pillar Wax. Your demould time gives 2 cycles per mould per day (how to calculate that from a six-hour demould), and you have 10 production days.

One weighed piece is the start, not the end. Once the test stage has produced a dozen pieces, weigh them all after trimming: if they range from, say, 136 g to 144 g, plan on the average and watch the spread, because an uneven fill level in the mould changes both the weight and how the base sits. A heavier-than-planned average across 500 pieces is the commonest reason a moulded order runs short of wax on the last day.

Cycles and mix are different counts

With container candles, a reject and a lost jar are often the same event. With moulded pieces they split apart. A piece with a bubble, a torn limb, a heavy seam or a drifted wick is melted down and poured again, so most of its wax and oil return; but the mould spent a full cycle making it, and that cycle is gone. So you need two counts:

The mix loss (3% here) is what does not come back: wax left in the pot and pitcher, seam trimmings that are not remelted, and the fragrance you choose not to reuse. Many makers remelt scented rejects only once, or blend them into fresh wax in small proportions, because repeated heating can weaken a scent; that is a tendency to test, not a rule. If you never remelt rejects, use the same rate for both counts and buy more wax.

How many moulds, and what days do to the bill

With cycles fixed, the mould count is a division: moulds = cycles ÷ (cycles per mould per day × production days), rounded up. 555 ÷ (2 × 10) = 27.75, so 28. Silicone moulds wear: thin parts tear, wick holes stretch, surfaces dull. So add spares, a labelled 10% here (3 moulds), and inspect every mould at the start of each day. That gives 31 moulds at ₹529.82 each: ₹16,424.42, or ₹32.85 per saleable piece.

The design matters as much as the days. The same 31 moulds of the David Candle Mould (14.5 cm tall, ₹3,540.00 each on its page) would cost ₹1,09,740.00, ₹219.48 a piece in moulds alone, before a heavier piece multiplies the wax. When a client chooses a sculpture, show them the mould bill for their choice next to a simpler one.

Two designs means two counts

Wedding clients often want more than one shape: couples for the head table, roses for the guest tables. Moulds cannot be shared between designs, so run the division once per design, with each design’s own piece weight and reject rate, and add spares per design. Splitting 500 into 300 couples and 200 roses at the same rates and days gives 17 couple moulds and 12 rose moulds before spares, one more than the single-design count, because each design rounds up on its own. Small rounding like that is the cost of variety; a third or fourth design adds a little more each time, plus another test stage, which is a calendar cost rather than a mould cost.

Check the melt side too: 28 moulds at 2 cycles is 56 pours a day, about 7.84 kg of mix, which one fill of a 10 kg Electric Wax Melter (₹21,240.00) covers if you already own one; the page’s own capacity and speed claims are the manufacturer’s, not tested here. The three-constraint view (melt, moulds, people) for a short deadline is 6303.

Wax, fragrance and wick for freestanding pieces

Wax

Use a wax made for pillars and moulded shapes. CSI’s Soy Pillar Wax is listed "specially made for pillar and designer candles"; container waxes are formulated to cling to glass, which is the opposite of what you want at demoulding. The captured page text states no fragrance-load ceiling and no pour temperature, so the oil page’s maximum governs the load and your test pours decide the temperature (too hot and fine detail can show more shrinkage and seams; too cool and surfaces can look rough, both tendencies to check on the test). 526 pieces’ worth × 128.8 g = 67.75 kg. Because the wax is flat at ₹600.00 a kilo, buy to the kilo: 68 kg (₹40,800.00), 0.25 kg spare, rather than seven 10 kg bags. Per piece, that is ₹77.28 of wax.

Fragrance

British Rose’s page states "candles (up to 10% soy, up to 6% paraffin)". Test 6%, 8% and 10% on three pieces each, because a freestanding shape releases scent from a pool that forms differently from a jar candle. 526 × 11.2 g = 5,891.2 g, bought as 5 × 1 kg + 500 g + 4 × 100 g (₹18,301.80); about ₹34.36 of oil per piece. Fragrance oils are not essential oils, and nothing here is a wellbeing claim: rose is a scent many people associate with weddings, nothing more.

Wick

Freestanding pieces are usually wicked with braided cotton threaded through the mould with a needle, held centred at the open end while the wax sets, and trimmed after demoulding. Length per piece = piece height + enough to thread, hold and trim: a worked 10 cm piece + 3 cm = 13 cm. The Braided Wick Roll (61 m) gives 469 wicks at that length, so 555 cycles plus 12 test pieces (73.71 m) need 2 rolls (₹1,413.64), about ₹1.51 of wick per piece. Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made are listed for "pillar, container, and decorative candles", but at 10.16 cm tall they are too short to thread and anchor through a 10 cm sculpture; keep them for smaller pieces.

The purchase sheet

The moulds are the only line that does not get used up, and they are not client-specific: a couple mould is reusable for the next wedding, which is a reason to price them partly into this job and partly into your own equipment, by your own judgement. Consumables alone come to ₹121.03 a piece; with every mould charged to this job, ₹155.77. Both exclude labour, freight, packaging and GST. The general layout of a bulk purchase sheet is 6340; this one changes only in having two drivers (cycles and mix).

What you never skip, and the calendar it needs

In the worked plan: test stage 7 days, production 10, finishing, QC and packing 3, delivery 2, slack 2: 24 days from the first test pour. If the wedding is closer than that, the choices are more moulds (and confirming you can get them), a simpler design, or fewer pieces; never skipping the burn test. Securing every critical material before promising the date is 6355.

The products in this order

The mould, the pillar wax, the oil, the wick and the two tools that make wicking 31 moulds practical. Nothing is ranked on performance (CSI publishes no burn data).

Frequently asked questions