I Want to Supply Candles to Hotels and Spas — Should I Prioritise Strong Fragrance, Long Burn Time, Consistent Appearance or Lower Cost When Selecting Materials?

What a hospitality buyer actually values

Supplying hotels and spas is not like selling to individual customers. The buyer is usually choosing one product for a property or a group, and will reorder it month after month. The guest experience is built around that candle being the same each time: the same scent at the entrance, the same calm in the treatment room, the same look on the tables. A supplier who delivers a beautiful first batch and a slightly different second batch has a problem that no price cut can fix.

That is why the four priorities in the question are not equal. Consistency sits above the others because it protects the relationship. Fragrance fit comes next, and it depends on the space. Burn time matters for value, but it is a figure you must measure, not quote from a supplier. Cost must fit the buyer's budget, but it should never be reduced by changing the formula they approved.

The priorities change with placement

All loads here are suggested starting points inside each oil's stated load range on the product page. Packaging, labels, labour, delivery and GST are excluded from every cost.

Presenting the options to the buyer

Hospitality buyers rarely want one candle for everything. Present the placements as a short range: one sample of each specification, each with a card stating its weight, fragrance, the load expressed simply as strong, medium or light, and your own measured burn result. Ask where each candle will actually sit, how many hours a day it will burn, and who will light and extinguish it. Those answers move the priorities more than any material choice. A lobby candle lit by staff for most of the day is a very different product from an amenity candle a guest may never light at all, and the buyer will trust a supplier who asks.

Building the four specifications

Lobby: a large candle for a large room

The Apothecary Glass Candle Jar with Dome Lid in the 500 gm size costs ₹212.40. At a suggested 8%, the candle is 460 g of wax and 40 g of oil. Bergamot Amber suits a polished entrance; its page gives a soy range of 6 to 10% and notes that at 8% the scent is balanced between bergamot and amber. CSI publishes no internal diameter for this jar, so measure the opening yourself. Cotton Braided Ready Made wicks are listed for candles wider than 8 cm, so test one of those against two Eco C2 wicks.

Cost with two C2 wicks: 460 × ₹0.5074 = ₹233.40 of wax, 40 × ₹5.437 = ₹217.48 of oil, ₹212.40 for the jar and 2 × ₹9.44 = ₹18.88 for wicks, a total of ₹682.16. With one Cotton Braided Ready Made wick at ₹12.00 instead, it is ₹675.28. Judge the lobby candle in the largest room you have access to, because a throw that fills a workshop may vanish in a double-height lobby.

Spa room: calm and clean

Treatment rooms are small and guests lie still for an hour, so a gentler load and a clean flame matter more than power. A 200 g candle at a suggested 7% is 186 g of wax and 14 g of oil. Eucalyptus Spearmint states 0% vanillin, which keeps light wax light inside a white matte jar, and the page rates it moderate to strong. Lavender and Lemongrass and Lime are calm alternatives. Cost: 186 × ₹0.5074 = ₹94.38, plus 14 × ₹3.068 = ₹42.95, plus the matte jar at ₹70.80 and an Eco C1 at ₹5.90, for ₹214.03.

Dining table: almost no scent

Restaurants usually want light without fragrance. An unscented 70 g votive is all wax: 70 × ₹0.5074 = ₹35.52, plus the 70 gram votive jar at ₹31.86 and an Eco C1 at ₹5.90, for ₹73.28. Without oil, the wick may behave differently from your scented tests, so wick-test the unscented version separately.

Appearance carries more weight here than anywhere else in the hotel, because diners look at the candle for an entire meal. Pour the votives from one batch per delivery, keep the fill line identical by weighing each one, and check that the wax has not pulled away from the glass, which shows clearly against white tablecloths. A plain unscented votive that looks perfect is worth more to a restaurant than a scented one that looks uneven.

Guest room: an amenity that smells good unlit

Many guest-room candles are smelled more than burned, so cold throw and a lid matter. The 120 g shiny jar with lid costs ₹47.20 and has a 6 cm diameter on its page. At a suggested 7% the candle is 111.6 g of wax and 8.4 g of oil. With Lavender, rated Strong on its page: 111.6 × ₹0.5074 = ₹56.63, plus 8.4 × ₹5.221 = ₹43.86, plus ₹47.20 and ₹5.90, for ₹153.59.

Measuring burn time and protecting consistency

A hotel buyer will ask how long the candle lasts. CSI publishes no burn-time figures for finished candles, and nobody can give you an honest number without testing your exact candle. Measure it instead.

Consistency comes from paperwork as much as materials. Keep one written specification per placement: wax, oil, load, wick, jar, fill weight, adding and pouring temperatures. Pour a retained sample from every batch and compare it with the approved original before delivery. Avoid dye in hotel lines unless the brief needs colour; one fewer ingredient is one fewer thing that can drift. Prefer oils that state 0% vanillin for light wax, so colour does not change between deliveries that have aged differently.

Buy this to test, buy this once validated

Test all four placements, ₹5,591.90: CSI 464 5 kg ₹2,537.00; Bergamot Amber 100 g ₹560.00; Eucalyptus Spearmint 100 g ₹354.00; Lavender 100 g ₹540.00; two 500 gm apothecary dome jars 2 × ₹212.40 = ₹424.80; white matte jars, pack of 5, ₹354.00; votive jars, pack of 5, ₹159.30; 120 g shiny jars, pack of 5, ₹236.00; Eco C1 20 ₹118.00; Eco C2 20 ₹188.80; Cotton Braided Ready Made 10 ₹120.00. The tests use about 2,023 g of wax: two lobby candles, and three each of the other three placements.

Once the property approves: wax in 10 kg packs, each approved oil in 500 g or 1 kg to match the property's monthly volume, jars and the approved wicks in the counts the order needs, and the written specification sheets that make the next order identical to this one.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page turns the product above into a raw-material list; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions