I'm Making 100 Candles in 200 ml Jars — How Do I Calculate the Total Wax and Fragrance Oil I Need Without Making Too Much?

From one weighed candle to 100: the batch sum

The only number that matters at 100 units is the weight of one finished candle poured to your fill line in your jar. The series works with the CSI "200 ml" matte and frosted family, listed as 8 cm tall and 7 cm wide; the hub post shows why that jar, filled 1 cm below the rim, gives a finished candle of roughly 147 to 154 g, and why we plan with 150 g. If you have already weighed your own test pours, replace 150 with your number everywhere below. If you have not, stop and do that first: at 100 units a guess of 200 g instead of 150 g means 5 kg of blend bought for candles that cannot fit.

Step 1: split one candle at your load

Load is a percentage of the finished candle's total weight, CSI's convention throughout. A 150 g candle at 8% is 12 g of oil and 138 g of wax. The oil is inside the 150 g. A common batch error is ordering 150 g of wax per candle and then adding oil on top: that is 15 kg of wax where 13.8 kg is needed, 8.7% too much before any allowance, and 1.2 kg of oil with nowhere to go but over the fill line.

Step 2: multiply by 100

100 × 138 g = 13.8 kg of wax. 100 × 12 g = 1.2 kg of oil. Together, 15 kg of candle blend. That is the exact figure: what the 100 jars will contain if every gram you melt ends up in a sellable candle, which never happens.

Step 3: add the allowance to the blend, not to the wax

Loss happens after the oil is stirred in: the film left in the jug is scented blend, and so is a rejected candle. So apply the allowance to the whole 15 kg and split again: 15 kg × 1.05 = 15.75 kg of blend, which is 14.49 kg of wax and 1.26 kg of oil at 8%. Adding 5% to the wax alone would leave you 60 g short of oil on the last round, which is the moment you discover it.

Two things to take from the table. First, moving from 6% to 10% shifts 630 g from the wax order to the oil order (with allowance), and oil costs roughly six times as much per gram as CSI 464, so the load is a bigger money decision than a wax decision; the per-candle cost of that change is worked in I Changed My Fragrance Load From 6% to 10% — Will That Change How Much Wax I Need to Put Into Each Jar?. Second, CSI 464's page states up to 10%, and British Rose's page states up to 10% in soy, so 10% is a ceiling on both counts, not a target. If you have not tested 6%, 8% and 10% in this jar, do that on ten candles before you order for a hundred.

The pour-loss allowance for 100 units

An allowance is not waste you plan to make; it is blend you plan to have on hand so the last jar of the run is not the one that comes up short. At 100 units the sources are few and predictable. We size them below as a worked example; the percentages are our planning judgement, not industry data, and your own records after one run should replace them.

Rounding 700 g up to 750 g gives a small cushion for a round that pours heavy. At 100 units that is the whole story; the fuller list of loss categories (test candles pulled from the line, re-pours, rejects by type) matters more at 500 and is broken down in I'm Making 500 Candles in the Same Glass Jar — How Do I Calculate Wax Requirement After Accounting for Fragrance Oil and Production Loss?, and the buffer a corporate client needs at 1,000 in I'm Making 1,000 Jar Candles for a Corporate Order — How Much Extra Wax Should I Prepare Beyond the Exact Calculated Fill Weight?.

Whichever level you choose, notice what it costs. The 5% allowance is 690 g of CSI 464 (₹350.11) and 60 g of British Rose (₹184.08): ₹534.19 for the run, ₹5.34 per candle. Running out on the last round costs a second delivery and, worse, a round poured from a different oil lot or a different wax bag than the other 90 candles. The allowance is cheap insurance; an allowance of 20% "to be safe" is not, because it turns into scented wax with no jars.

Turning 14.49 kg into wax packs

Luxury Soy Wax CSI 464 is sold in 500 g (₹260.00), 1 kg (₹507.40), 5 kg (₹2,537.00) and 10 kg (₹5,074.00). From 1 kg upward the price is ₹0.51 per gram at every size; only the 500 g is dearer, at ₹0.52. So there is no bulk reward inside the listed sizes, and any combination that reaches the same weight costs the same. That turns the choice into one about slack.

Option A costs ₹247.40 more than option C and buys 500 g more wax, which is exactly the point: the extra is unscented, so it waits in its sealed bag for the next batch rather than sitting in a jug. At 100 units, pay for the slack.

If you are pouring a different wax

The totals do not change with the wax, but the bill does. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks at 10 kg + 5 kg is ₹8,994.00 (₹0.60 per gram at 10 kg), ₹1,383.00 more than CSI 464 for the same 15 kg; its page states "up to 13% fragrance load capacity". Premium Coconut Soy Wax CSI 468 at 10 kg + 5 kg is ₹9,555.00 (₹0.64 per gram), ₹1,944.00 more; its page states up to 13% and a much lower pour temperature, 58°C – 60°C. Neither ceiling changes an 8% candle. If you switch waxes, re-weigh a test pour: fill weight in the same jar can shift a little between waxes, which I'm Switching From Soy Wax to Coconut-Soy Wax — Do I Need to Recalculate the Fill Weight for My Existing Candle Jars? covers.

Turning 1.26 kg into oil bottles

We use British Rose Fragrance Oil as the costing example because every size is in stock on 26 September 2026 and its page states a candle load. It comes in 15 g (₹94.40), 50 g (₹212.40), 100 g (₹342.20), 500 g (₹1,593.00) and 1 kg (₹3,068.00). Per gram that is ₹6.29, ₹4.25, ₹3.42, ₹3.19 and ₹3.07: bigger is cheaper, but the step from 500 g to 1 kg saves only 3.7% per gram.

At other loads the same logic gives: 6% (945 g with allowance) fits in one 1 kg bottle, ₹3,068.00; 10% (1,575 g) needs 1 kg + 500 g + 100 g, ₹5,003.20. The exact 1.2 kg at 8% is worth ₹3,681.60 at the 1 kg rate, for comparison.

Melt in rounds so you never make too much

The way 100-candle batches overshoot is not the order; it is the melt. Melt 15 kg at once and scent it all, and whatever is left after the last jar is scented blend with no home. Melt in rounds sized to the jars on your table and the only scented leftover is the last round's residue.

Why rounds of ten? Big enough that ten rounds finish a run in a day; small enough that one round of residue is a few tens of grams. Size them to your melting pot and pitcher rather than the other way round: the Steel Pouring Pitcher Large states a capacity of 600 ml (the Small is out of stock on 26 September 2026), and a 600 ml jug will not hold a 1.5 kg round in one fill, so it becomes a pouring jug refilled from the pot, not the melting vessel. How melt size, melter capacity and loss interact at 500 units is worked in I'm Making 500 Candles in the Same Glass Jar — How Do I Calculate Wax Requirement After Accounting for Fragrance Oil and Production Loss?.

What is left over, and what it is for

With option A for wax and option A for oil, a clean run ends with about 510 g of CSI 464 in its bag, 40 g of British Rose in a bottle, and whatever residue the last round leaves in the jug. Here is what each is worth and what to do with it.

The three spare candles' worth of wax and oil are worth having for one practical reason: they let you pour three extra jars if a rejected candle turns up after the run, from the same bag of wax and the same bottle of oil as the other 97. Keeping them is not over-buying; it is how you replace a broken candle without a batch difference.

What to buy: jar, wax, oil, wick, scale

Five items in the order the batch uses them, chosen on what their pages state, price and stock on 26 September 2026. The jar and wax set the totals; the oil is an example; the wick and scale make the totals come true.

The 100-candle bill of materials

Everything for 100 saleable candles of 150 g at 8% in the Matte 200 ml jar, with the 5% allowance and five spare jars. Prices are CSI live pricing on 26 September 2026; the quantities are our worked example; costs exclude labour, freight, packaging and GST.

Per candle, the exact materials are ₹187.08: jar ₹70.80, 138 g of wax ₹70.02, 12 g of oil ₹36.82 and one wick ₹9.44. The bill's ₹201.78 is higher because it carries the allowance, the five spare jars and ten spare wicks. Wax and oil alone come to ₹11,705.60. How many extra jars to hold for a first 100 is a jar-buying question with its own framework in I Need 100 Candle Jars for My First Production Run — Should I Buy Exactly 100 or Order Extras for Testing and Breakage?.

Frequently asked questions