I Want to Make 50 × 200 g Vanilla Soy Candles at 8% Fragrance Load — What Exact Quantity of Wax and Vanilla Fragrance Oil Should I Buy?

The exact quantities, before and after allowances

"Exact" means two different things in a candle order, and this page gives both. The exact formula quantity is what fifty finished candles contain: at 8% of a 200 g finished weight, each candle is 16 g of vanilla and 184 g of wax, so fifty candles contain 800 g of oil and 9,200 g of wax. Nobody can make fifty candles from exactly that, because wax stays in the jug, a candle or two will need remaking, and a new oil needs test candles. The exact purchase quantity is the formula quantity plus named allowances — and it is the number you actually type into a cart.

The wax line shows why the allowances matter even on a small run. The exact 9.2 kg would fit inside a 10 kg bag with 800 g to spare; the purchase quantity of 10,653.0 g does not, and lands just over the 10.5 kg that a 10 kg plus a 500 g bag would give. So the cheapest cover is 1 × 10 kg + 1 × 1 kg of CSI 464 at ₹5,581.40, with 347 g left — about two candles' worth for your next run. If your own pour loss is 3% rather than 4%, the need is 10,550.6 g: still over 10.5 kg, so the order does not change. That is worth checking every time: a percentage that moves the need across a pack boundary is the one worth arguing about.

Which 8%? The two ways to read a fragrance load

"8% fragrance load" is written two ways in candle-making, and they give different oil weights. CSI's convention, used on every page in this series, is 8% of the finished candle: oil = 200 × 0.08 = 16 g, wax = 184 g. The other common reading is 8% of the wax. If you keep the finished candle at 200 g and read the load that way, the wax is 200 ÷ 1.08 = 185.19 g and the oil is 14.81 g — a true load of 7.41% of the candle. And if you weigh 184 g of wax and add 8% of it on top, you get 14.72 g of oil in a 198.72 g candle: a true 7.41%.

None of these is wrong as long as you know which one you are using and keep it consistent between testing and production. What goes wrong is mixing them: testing at 8% of finished weight and producing at 8% of wax gives you production candles with 1.19 g less vanilla each than the ones you approved — 59.3 g across the run. The last row shows the one formula that matters when you start from a fixed wax weight rather than a fixed candle: oil = wax × L ÷ (1 − L). The wax-weight-per-candle post uses that formula across 6%, 8%, 10% and 13%.

CSI 464 at 8%: two points of headroom, and why that matters

CSI's product page for Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 states a fragrance load of up to 10%. That is the wax maker's stated formulation maximum — not a regulatory limit and not an optimum. At 8% you have two percentage points of headroom: room for a test at 9% or 10% if your vanilla turns out quieter than you want, and no room at all above 10%. The other CSI container waxes with a published ceiling — Luxury Soy Wax Chunks and Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 — state 13%; Natural Soy Pearl publishes none.

In money, headroom is not free. Each extra point of load on a 200 g candle is 2 g more oil and 2 g less wax. At Vanilla Bean's 1 kg rate of ₹7.65 a gram that is about ₹15.29 more per candle, or ₹764.60 across fifty candles — far more than the ₹1.01 of wax it replaces. So the order on this page is sized at the title's 8%; if your test pushes you to 10%, rerun the oil line (1,000 g exact for fifty) rather than adding a guess on top.

The 12% row is there to show what not to do in this wax. If you want to test loads above 10%, test them in a wax whose page states a higher ceiling — and remember that the load which smells strongest in a test is not automatically the one to produce. 10% against 8% prices the difference for a 100-candle run, and the oud post shows how a 10% target can creep over the ceiling by accident.

Vanilla Bean or Dark Vanilla: why the oil waits for the test

CSI lists two straightforward vanillas: Vanilla Bean and Dark Vanilla. On the 24 September pull they are priced identically at every size: ₹130.00 for 15 g, ₹410.00 for 50 g, ₹790.00 for 100 g, ₹3,840.00 for 500 g and ₹7,646.00 for 1 kg. CSI publishes no throw data, composition or IFRA percentage for either here — check each product page, or ask for the IFRA certificate and MSDS on WhatsApp. Colour change over time is a general concern makers raise with some vanilla-type fragrances; CSI publishes no discolouration data for either oil, which is one more reason the test below keeps a candle on the shelf.

That makes the oil, not the wick, the deciding material on this order. The rule this series uses is simple: shared materials can be bought early, the material a test might change is bought after the test. Wax, jars, wicks and stickers are the same whichever vanilla wins. The vanilla is not — and at ₹6,620.00 it is the most expensive single line in the order. So the test buys two small lots of 33.28 g each (two candles per vanilla with 4% pour loss), which the cheapest listed sizes cover as 3 × 15 g per oil, and the production oil follows once you have chosen.

Rounding every line to real CSI packs

With the oil choice separated out, rounding is mechanical: the cheapest in-stock combination for each line, then the leftover and what it is worth at the price paid. Two pack details decide this order. CSI 464 is priced flat at ₹507.40 a kilo from 1 kg to 10 kg, with the 500 g bag dearer at ₹520.00 a kilo, so a 10 kg plus a 1 kg bag is cheaper than a 10 kg plus two 500 g bags. And the vanillas get only slightly cheaper per gram with size — ₹7.90 at 100 g, ₹7.68 at 500 g, ₹7.65 at 1 kg — while 15 g is ₹8.67, so the production oil is built from a 500 g bottle plus 100 g bottles and small top-ups rather than a 1 kg bottle.

The priced CSI order for 50 vanilla candles

The full list, in two stages. Stage one is bought now and is the same whichever vanilla wins. Stage two is one line: the winning vanilla's production quantity. Non-CSI items are shown as examples and kept outside the CSI subtotal.

That is ₹355.67 of CSI materials per saleable candle, or ₹297.17 for one candle's own BOM before allowances (wax, oil, wick, sticker and jar at the rates paid). The difference between the two is the cost of tests, rejects, pour loss, breakage and pack rounding spread over fifty candles. The Eco Thin C1 wick is used here because it is the series' default single wick; CSI publishes no wick-per-diameter chart, so the four test candles double as your wick check. If the wick fails, the wick-sample post shows how many alternatives to add.

The CSI products on this list

Where this order goes next

Fifty candles is a pilot-sized run, and the next questions are usually about scale and variety. The 100-candle Lavender hub runs the same method on a run twice the size, with the wick as the deciding material. Two fragrances in one run shows how to share one wax pack across two oils, and 25 each of four fragrances splits a combined wax purchase across four. If you want the smallest possible leftover rather than the cheapest order, the minimum-leftover post picks packs closest to the need. And the 6% versus 8% post shows what a lower load does to the vanilla line.

Frequently asked questions