My Formula Is 8% Fragrance but One Employee Calculates Fragrance as 8% of Wax Weight and Another as 8% of Total Finished Weight — How Much Difference Can That Create at 25 Kg Scale?

Same words, two different candles

This series defines fragrance load as a percentage of the total finished weight: wax plus oil. Many product pages, including CSI's, phrase their stated load ranges as a percentage of wax weight, and plenty of makers learn it that way. Neither convention is wrong in itself. The problem starts when two people in the same workshop use different conventions on the same formula, because the percentage stays the same on paper while the candle changes.

At 1 kg the gap is easy to overlook: 80 g of oil either way, a few grams of difference in the final candle. At 25 kg it becomes a measurable quantity of oil, a different number of candles and a different cost per candle. Here are the exact figures.

Two things jump out. First, whichever way Employee B starts, the finished load lands at the same 7.41% of total. Second, the oil difference depends on where B starts. If B takes the 23 kg wax figure and applies 8% to it, the batch gets 1.84 kg of oil, which is 160 g less than A's 2 kg. If B melts 25 kg of wax and adds 2 kg, the oil is the same but there are 2 kg more wax, so each candle carries less oil.

What the difference means inside each candle

Customers buy candles, not batches, so bring it down to one 200 g jar. Employee A's candle contains 16 g of oil and 184 g of wax. Employee B's candle, at 7.41%, contains about 14.8 g of oil (200 × 2 ÷ 27) and about 185.2 g of wax. That is roughly 1.2 g less oil per candle, or about 7.4% less oil relative to the approved candle.

Is that detectable? It depends on the oil. Some fragrances are forgiving over a small range; others shift in character. Bergamot Amber's product page is a good illustration: it describes bergamot leading at 6%, a balanced profile at 8% and amber coming forward at 10%. A drop from 8.00% to 7.41% moves partway towards the bergamot-led end of that description. You cannot predict from arithmetic alone whether a customer will notice. You can only find out by testing.

On a batch basis, the 160 g of oil that Employee B leaves out of a 23 kg sheet batch is worth ₹869.92 (0.16 × ₹5,437.00). That looks like a saving until you remember the candles are no longer the product you approved and priced. When B instead melts 25 kg of wax, the extra 2 kg of CSI 464 costs ₹1,014.80 (2 × ₹507.40), and those ten extra candles are all slightly under-scented.

A controlled test: is 7.41% different enough to matter?

Before you rework anything, find out whether the difference is visible in your own system. Make two small controls with exactly the same materials and let smell decide.

Repeat this for each oil you sell. The answer for a strong, single-note oil can differ from the answer for a layered blend.

Be honest about the result either way. If nobody can tell the jars apart, that is useful information, but it applies only to this oil, this wax and this wick. It does not justify switching the whole range to the cheaper-looking method. If the difference is obvious, you have also learned something valuable: your approved candle sits in a part of the load range where small arithmetic slips are visible, so the weighing and calculation controls on that product need to be tighter than on the others.

There is one more thing to check while the controls are curing. Look at how each candle burns, not just how it smells. A wick selected for 8% of total was validated with a specific amount of oil in the melt pool. A small change in load is unlikely to transform the burn, but note the flame height, melt pool and any soot on both jars so you have a complete record rather than a smell-only verdict.

What to do with the candles already made

Sort production into lots by who made them and which method they used. Your batch records, checked with the oil-to-wax ratio above, will show this quickly.

The control: one definition, written down

The fix is not training people to remember harder. It is removing the choice. Write the rule at the top of every batch sheet: fragrance load is a percentage of the total finished weight. Then print the wax and oil figures for each batch size so nobody applies a percentage on the floor. For 25 kg the sheet says 23 kg and 2 kg, and nothing else.

When you quote a stated load range from a product page, translate it before it enters your formula. The page's figure is the supplier's guidance; your sheet is your formula. Keep the two apart so a page phrased on wax weight never quietly rewrites a formula built on total weight.

Finally, recheck the old batch records once. It is common to discover that the two methods have been running side by side for months, and that the difference customers mentioned was never the oil lot. For IFRA and MSDS documents on any oil, or wax quotes beyond the 10 kg packs, message CSI on WhatsApp at +91 7397976926.

Where this page fits

CSI already has guides that cover parts of this question. This page covers the failure investigation for the question above; these go deeper on the rest:

Three things to buy for this job

Frequently asked questions