Should I Use My Most Difficult Heavy Fragrance as the Reference When Selecting the Range of Wicks I Keep in Inventory?

The bounding order, line by line

The worked example is your own jar at 7.5 cm across the inside, filled to 150 g at 8% (CSI's convention: load as a share of total candle weight, so 12 g of oil + 138 g of wax). CSI does not sell a jar at that width that you can buy today: the three listings that state 7.5 cm (two bamboo-lid glass jars and a ceramic container) are out of stock on 1 October 2026, and the nearest in-stock glass, the 150 g Clear Glass Jar with Golden Lid, is about 7 cm across the outside. Measure yours: a 7.5 cm inside diameter is 44.18 cm² of pool; if 7.5 cm is the outside of a 0.35 cm wall (our labelled assumption) it is 6.8 cm inside and 36.32 cm².

From nothing, that is ₹2,291.20 in cash plus your jars; the twelve candles consume ₹1,630.27 of materials (each candle: ₹70.80 or ₹42.48 of oil, ₹70.02 of wax, and the wick). Note what is not here: no 100-packs, no second jar size, no ladder for the four oils in the middle. Their confirmation counts are the reference-first post; this page only needs the two ends.

Why C2 appears on both sides: it is the overlap rung. If Dark Vanilla Oud passes on C2, your ceiling is lower than you feared and Cotton Braided may not belong in stock at all. If Eucalyptus Spearmint passes on C2 and runs hot on nothing, the floor is C2 and C1 stays out of the bin. Testing the shared rung from both ends is what turns two references into a range rather than two isolated answers.

What each reference can and cannot tell you

"Most difficult" is not always "heaviest". Rank your range on paper first: oud, resinous woods, dark gourmands and high-vanillin oils are the families commonly linked to wanting a wick step up or carbon on the wick; fresh herbals, citrus and soft florals commonly burn more easily. Add the load each oil runs at (a higher load can make a flame smaller or sootier) and your own burn notes. That ranking is a tendency, not data: CSI publishes no wick-performance figures for any oil. How to build the paper ranking from page data is the 12-fragrance pre-screen post; choosing representative oils for a test budget is the commercial test-count post.

In the worked example the twelve candles come back like this (a labelled example of full-life results, not a forecast for your jar): Dark Vanilla Oud tunnels on C2 and passes on Cotton Braided; Eucalyptus Spearmint passes on C1 and runs a big, fast pool on C2. The range is now bounded at C1 and Cotton Braided, with three tabbed rungs to hold. The four oils in between (Lavender, British Rose, Jasmine, Woody Oud) each get confirm candles on the rung their paper rank suggests and its neighbour, which is the staged-waves post and reference-first territory.

At 7.5 cm, a very rough rule of thumb (about an hour per 2.5 cm of width) puts a full first pool at about 3.0 hours, so test sessions of about three hours. A 7.5 cm inside jar has 42% more pool surface than the 6.3 cm inside of CSI's 7 cm glass on our wall assumption: one reason a range that lived happily on C1 and C2 in 7 cm jars may suddenly need its top rung at 7.5.

From bounds to quantities: weight by sales mix

Once every oil has an approved rung, the quantity per rung is arithmetic: wicks a month = candles a month of the oils approved on that rung × (1 + allowance). The allowance covers rejects, retests and a small test reserve; 10% is our labelled judgement for a range that is still settling. The stock target here is one month of use plus half a month of safety stock, also judgement: your own lead time sets the real figure.

Two things fall out. First, the ceiling rung is a minority of units but not of money: Cotton Braided is 33.3% of the wicks and 45.1% of the wick spend, because it is the dearest per wick. Second, the floor matters more than people expect: in this mix C1 carries 120 of 300 candles, at ₹5.90 a wick, the cheapest tabbed wick CSI sells. A heavy-only reference would never have put it in the bin. The full sales-mix split, with packs per size, is the two-wick quantity post; reorder points per size are the reorder-point post.

For scale: if every one of the 300 candles ran on Cotton Braided (only possible if every oil passed full life on it, which a light oil in a 7.5 cm jar commonly does not), the month would cost ₹3,960.00 in wicks, ₹1,030.48 more than the bounded split. That is not the expensive part, though. The expensive part is the stock you buy before you know.

Why a heavy-only reference overstocks Cotton Braided

The overstock happens in a particular order. You test the hardest oil, it passes on Cotton Braided, you size stock for the whole range on Cotton Braided (495 wicks: 300 candles × 1.10 × 1.5), and the natural pack is the 500 (₹6,000.00). Then the light and middle oils are confirmed on it, run too hot, and move down to C1 and C2, which you now buy as well. Cotton Braided use falls to 110 a month and the 500-pack becomes 4.5 months of stock.

The heavy-only path costs ₹3,960.00 more in total, and most of it sits in Cotton Braided you will use slowly. The light-only path is cheaper in rupees but worse in practice: the heavy oils have no approved wick in the building, so production of your dearest candles stops while you order. The light reference costs six extra candles, against either mistake.

Overstock is not only cash. Wicks are cheap and keep, so the risk is less spoilage than drift: a jar batch, a wax or a load changes, the approval behind those 335 spare wicks lapses, and they become test stock. What to do with a surplus of a larger wick when you wick a product down is the transition-stock post; whether a low-volume oil could share a neighbour's rung instead of holding one is the wick-sharing post.

The stocking gate: no rung without a full-life pass

The order of operations below turns the twelve bounding candles into a stocked range. Each step either releases money or holds it.

Approval is per configuration: jar, wax, oil, load and wick. Change the jar batch, the wax or an oil's load and the bounds are re-run for the oils affected, not assumed; behaviour groups as a standing house rule are the behaviour-groups post. The cluster's five-oil purchase plan, which this page extends to a stocked range, is the cluster hub.

What to buy, and what to skip

Five items, chosen on page statements, price and stock on 1 October 2026. CSI publishes no wick-performance data, so nothing here is ranked on burn results. Oil candle counts use 12 g per 150 g candle.

Skip for bounding: Performance Wooden Wicks (₹590.00 for 10): one listing with no widths, so it cannot bound anything; a wooden range is its own test. The cut-to-length Braided Wick Roll (₹706.82) and Eco Braided Wicks (₹472.00 for 5 m): unsized, worth a look only if a bound falls between CSI rungs. The Steel Wick Holder (₹250.00 for 5): only if the heavy reference forces pairs.

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