I Want to Make 100 Candles with the Minimum Possible Leftover Raw Material — How Do I Choose CSI Pack Sizes Closest to My Calculated Requirements?

Three ways to round, and why they usually agree

Once the allowance stack has turned 100 saleable candles into a requirement — here 20,865.6 g of wax, 1,814.4 g of oil, 111 jars and 112 wicks, using 4 test candles, 3% rejects, 5% pour loss, 2% breakage and 4 spare wicks as labelled working assumptions — the last step is choosing real packs. There are three sensible objectives. Cheapest: the lowest total price that covers the need. Least leftover: the combination that lands closest above the need. Fewest packs: the simplest order to receive, store and open. Most of the time on CSI's catalogue, the first two are the same answer, because most packs are priced almost linearly. The interesting cases are where they are not.

The rule this page applies is simple. List every in-stock pack. Compute each combination that covers the need. Look at the cheapest and the tightest. If they are the same, choose between them and the fewest-packs option on convenience. If they differ, ask one question: is the leftover shared or specific? A leftover of wax, jars or wicks you use in every candle is simply next month's stock. A leftover of one fragrance oil is only useful if you make that scent again.

Wax: 500 g bags make the tightest fit

Luxury Soy Wax Chunks is listed at 500 g ₹299.00, 1 kg ₹599.00, 5 kg ₹2,995.00 and 10 kg ₹5,999.00: ₹598.00, ₹599.00, ₹599.00 and ₹599.90 a kilo. Because the 500 g bag is both the smallest and the cheapest per kilo, the cheapest combination is also the tightest — but it is a lot of bags.

Every option leaves the same 134.4 g, because 21 kg is the first multiple of 500 g above the need. So for this wax the decision is purely rupees against bag count: 42 × 500 g is the cheapest at ₹12,558.00; the fewest bags, 2 × 10 kg + 1 × 1 kg, cost ₹39.00 more, because the 10 kg bag is the one Chunks size that is dearer per kilo. The practical middle, 4 × 5 kg + 1 × 1 kg, is five bags for ₹12,579.00 — ₹21.00 above the cheapest and ₹18.00 below the 10 kg route. Any of them is defensible. The leftover is shared — it goes into the next candle of any scent.

Oil: where leftover actually costs money

Gardenia Fragrance Oil is priced almost flat above 50 g: 15 g ₹105.02 (₹7.00/g), 50 g ₹223.02 (₹4.46/g), and ₹4.33/g at 100 g, 500 g and 1 kg. That flat ladder means you can land very close to the need without paying more per gram. The table shows the three objectives, plus the practical choice this page uses — the cheapest combination of 50 g and larger bottles, with near-ties broken towards fewer bottles.

The strict cheapest, 18 × 100 g + 1 × 15 g, is also the tightest — 0.6 g over — but it is nineteen bottles and leaves no margin if your pour loss runs a little above 5%. The practical choice, 1 × 1 kg + 1 × 500 g + 3 × 100 g + 1 × 50 g, costs ₹121.00 more, uses 6 bottles, and leaves 35.6 g — worth ₹154.33 if it were never used. The fewest-bottles option, two 1 kg bottles, leaves 185.6 g for ₹643.98 more than the practical choice: a poor trade for a scent-specific material.

Citronella Fragrance Oil is the counter-example. Its 100 g bottle is ₹7.67/g; its 500 g is ₹2.95/g and its 1 kg ₹2.89/g — the largest bulk step on CSI's oil list. Here the cheapest and the tightest options part company sharply:

Buying 2 × 1 kg leaves 185.6 g over and costs ₹1,026.60 less than the tightest fit. The "waste" is cheaper than the precision. For an oil with a real bulk step, minimum leftover is the wrong objective: buy the cheapest cover and plan a use for the remainder. The 10%-versus-8% post shows the opposite quirk in Saffron Cedarwood, where the 1 kg bottle is dearer per gram than the 500 g.

Jars and wicks: the step size sets the leftover

Counted materials have a minimum leftover set by the smallest pack. White Matte Glass Jar comes in packs of 5 and 10 at ₹70.80 a jar, so 111 jars round to 115 — 4 over — whichever packs you choose. Eco Candle Wicks Thin C1 is ₹5.90 a wick at every pack, but with the 10-pack out of stock on the 4 October 2026 re-check the smallest step is 20, so 112 wicks round to 120 (1 × 100-pack + 1 × 20-pack, ₹708.00). Stickers come in sheets of 40: 3 sheets for 112 wicks.

All three leftovers are shared materials, so they carry into the next run at no loss — provided the next run uses the same jar and wick. That is a quiet argument for standardising on one jar and one wick early: every remainder stays useful. First 100: bulk or small makes the same point from the buying side.

Or change the plan to fit the pack

Sometimes the smallest leftover comes from adjusting the candle count, not the packs. With the practical Gardenia order of 1,850 g, the oil supports 110 candles poured at 16 g plus 5% pour loss, against the 108 planned. Bought as two 1 kg bottles, it would support 119. If your wax, jars and wicks also cover the extra candles, pouring them turns a leftover into stock you can sell.

The minimum-leftover shopping list for 100 candles

Buy-now and buy-after-test still apply: the wax, jars and stickers can be bought now because every option uses them; the production wick waits for a passed burn test (CSI publishes no wick size per diameter — see the wick sample ladder), and the oil waits if the scent or load is not yet decided — 6% vs 8% covers that case.

The CSI products in this order

Related 100-candle shopping lists

This page owns pack choice for minimum leftover. 105 or 110 owns the buffer that sets the requirement; two fragrances, one wax and four scents, one wax show how combining shared lines shrinks leftovers; first 100: bulk or small decides what to buy when; and the 100-candle template ends in a pack column. For larger quantities, 1.3 kg from 500 g and 1 kg packs and requirements below the minimum pack take the same method further.

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