My 1 Kg Formula Uses 80 g Fragrance Oil — Can I Simply Use 800 g in a 10 Kg Version or Do Larger Batches Require Different Mixing Considerations?

The only real question: which kilogram?

Scaling a formula by ten is simple proportion: every ingredient times ten, and the candle is unchanged. So 800 g of oil is correct for a 10 kg version of your 1 kg formula. The trap lies in the phrase '1 kg formula', because makers use it to mean two different things, and each leads to a different amount of wax.

If you weighed 1 kg of wax and added 80 g of oil, your test candle weighed 1,080 g and the oil was 80 ÷ 1,080, about 7.4%, of the finished candle. If you worked to CSI's convention, where the load is a percentage of total candle weight, then 8% of a 1 kg candle is 80 g of oil and 920 g of wax.

Neither is wrong as a candle. What is wrong is scaling one convention's oil with the other convention's wax. If your approved candle was the 1,080 g version and you now weigh 9.2 kg of wax with 800 g of oil, you have made a stronger candle than the one you approved. If your approved candle was the 920 g version and you weigh 10 kg of wax with 800 g of oil, you have made a weaker one.

Look at your original notes, not your memory. If the notes say '1 kg wax, 80 g FO', the first row is your candle. If they say '8%, 1 kg batch' and nothing else, weigh a fresh test both ways and burn them side by side; the one that matches your approved candle tells you which convention you used.

You may discover that you prefer the other version. That is fine, but it is a formula change, and it should be approved as one, with its own test and cure, rather than slipping in unnoticed at 10 kg.

Weighing 800 g accurately

At 80 g you probably weighed oil into a small beaker or cup. At 800 g, three new details matter.

Scale capacity. Many small digital scales have a maximum load that 800 g of oil plus a container may approach. CSI's Candle Making Weighing Scale does not publish its capacity or resolution, so check yours: the maximum is usually on a label underneath or in the manual. If you cannot confirm it, weigh the oil in two portions into separate tared containers.

Container size. A 250 ml silicone beaker is ideal for an 80 g test but will not hold 800 g of oil. Use a clean, dry vessel large enough to pour from steadily, dedicated to fragrance, and tare it on the scale before pouring.

Reading the display. Pour the last part slowly. Overshooting by 20 g at 80 g would ruin a test; at 800 g the same 20 g is 2.5% of the oil. That is smaller proportionally but still a change you would rather not make, so aim to land on the number, not near it.

The film left behind

Oil clings to the inside of whatever it was weighed in. With 80 g in a small beaker the film is small, and it is usually lost without anyone noticing. With 800 g poured from a larger vessel, the absolute amount left on the walls is larger, even though it is proportionally smaller.

You have two options. Either accept the film as a small, consistent loss and make sure you weighed the oil the same way in your test, so both carry a similar loss, or recover it. A common workshop habit is to ladle a little melted wax from the batch into the empty oil vessel, swirl it and pour it back. Treat this as an option to validate, and handle hot wax in a vessel you can hold safely.

Whichever you choose, do the same thing every batch. A consistent small loss produces consistent candles; a loss that is recovered on Monday and ignored on Thursday produces two slightly different products from one recipe card. Write the choice onto the card so whoever weighs the oil follows it.

Getting 800 g into 9.2 kg of wax evenly

In a 1 kg jug, 80 g of oil disappears into the wax under a few spoon strokes. In a 10 kg melter, 800 g entering at one spot takes real effort to spread. Three habits help.

One more small detail: oil stored in a cool room enters hot wax much cooler than the wax itself. At 80 g that barely registers. At 800 g it takes a little heat out of the batch where it lands, so check the wax temperature again after the oil is in and stirred, before you begin pouring.

The time you record here is not a rule to copy from anyone else. It is the time your vessel, your stirring tool and your wax took to reach a uniform batch, and it becomes the minimum for your next run.

Checking you made the candle you approved

After the standard cure, burn a 10 kg-batch candle beside a fresh 1 kg candle made by the same convention and the same materials. If they match, your scaling and your mixing are both sound, and the 10 kg recipe card can be written with its weights in full: wax in kilograms, oil in grams, and the convention stated at the top so nobody has to guess it again. If they do not match, the table above and your original notes are where to look first, before suspecting the oil or the equipment.

Finally, plan the oil for the batches that follow. At 800 g per 10 kg batch, a 1 kg container of Jasmine at ₹3,923.00 covers one batch with 200 g over, while two 500 g containers at ₹1,961.00 each cover one batch with the same 200 g spare. Leftover part-containers accumulate quickly across a production week. Label each with the date opened and use them for your next 1 kg tests, so the remainder never ends up topping up a production batch by guesswork.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page takes the production-floor angle; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions