I'm Manufacturing 1,000 Candles for Diwali — How Much Wax, Fragrance Oil and Wick Do I Need and Where Should I Buy It?

1,000 candles in kilos, bottles and wicks

Every quantity in a festive run comes from the recipe of one candle. In this series a fragrance load is a percentage of the finished candle, so a 200g candle at 8% is 184g of wax and 16g of oil. Times 1,000, that is 184 kg of wax and 16 kg of oil, and a single-wick candle takes one wick. Some pages phrase load the other way — the Luxury Soy Wax Chunks page gives its range "of total wax weight", which at 8% makes a 200g candle about 185.2g of wax and 14.8g of oil. Neither is wrong; mixing them across 1,000 candles is. Pick one convention, write it on every batch sheet, and weigh to it.

Two things in that table move the order more than any wax choice. Going from 8% to 10% at 200g leaves the bag count at nineteen but adds 4 kg of oil — ₹20,107.20 at Sandalwood's 1 kg price. Dropping from 200g to 150g takes 46 kg of wax off. Fix the candle size before you fix the quantities.

Wicks need a small allowance of their own: test jars, a wick knocked off-centre and the odd reject all use one. Plan 1,050 wicks (5% spare, a planning figure), and count double-wick candles twice.

Back-planning 1,000 candles from Sunday 8 November

Today is Friday 11 September 2026: 58 days to Diwali. Plan backwards from three dates. The in-hand date — we use Sunday 1 November, a week before the festival. The dispatch date — in-hand minus courier transit, which we assume is five days; that is an assumption, not a courier or supplier promise, so replace it with the transit you actually see to your customers' pincodes. And the last pour date — pack-out minus a cure of 14–21 days, standard practice for soy container candles.

Twelve melter loads: can you pour 1,000 in time?

At 1,000 candles the constraint is how much wax you can melt, fragrance and pour in a day. The Electric Wax Melter (Imported) is listed at ₹21,240 for 10 kg capacity and ₹25,960 for 20 kg; its page states it "can melt 10 kg of soy wax in approximately 30 minutes at 100°C". A CSI customer using it for nine months reports 10 kg melting "in mere 20-30 minutes" — one buyer's experience, not a specification. The 1 litre Mini Electric Wax Melter (₹2,360) is a test-jar tool.

For planning we load the 20 kg melter with 90 candles of one scent — 16.56 kg of wax plus 1.44 kg of oil, 18 kg, leaving headroom below the stated capacity — and the 10 kg melter with 50: 9.2 kg plus 0.8 kg, exactly its stated 10 kg. Candles per load is an assumption; weigh and time your first load before promising a date.

The last row is the most common plan, and it fails: fifteen heavy-scent loads at one a day run to Wednesday 7 October, two days past their stop. The fix is a bigger melter, a second daily pour, or fewer candles — not more wax. That is why the melter decision belongs in the same week as the wax order; the two capacities are compared in professional wax melters for candle making.

Which wax, and what 190 kg costs from listed packs

No CSI soy wax is listed anywhere near 190 kg. The largest packs are 10 kg on most waxes, 5 kg on Eco Soy CSI 400 and 50 kg on Natural Soy Pearl Wax, so the listed price of 190 kg is a sum of bags.

The costed run uses CSI 464. Its page states a load of up to 10%, so an 8% festive recipe sits inside a published ceiling; it is stated for single-pour container candles; it is the lowest-cost CSI wax that publishes both a load and temperatures; and it lists a 60-month shelf life in cool, dry storage, so a spare bag is not wasted. Eco Soy CSI 400 would save ₹20,558, but neither it nor Natural Soy Pearl Wax states a load. Luxury Soy Wax Chunks give the most stated room (8–13%) for ₹16.86 more wax per candle. Either switch makes sense only if it is the wax you tested.

16 kg of fragrance across a Diwali range

The split below is an example, not a forecast — replace the counts with your order book or your corporate client's brief. It anchors on Sandalwood, adds a warm gourmand, a traditional floral and an oud, and pours each in whole melter loads. For choosing the families, see five Diwali candle fragrances that can become bestsellers; for corporate orders, the best fragrance oils for corporate gifting candles.

The price ladders decide the bottles. On Sandalwood and Woody Oud the price per gram is flat from 100g to 1 kg, so small top-up bottles cost nothing extra. On Jasmine the kilo is ₹3.92 a gram against ₹4.30 in 100g bottles — about 8.8% cheaper — so buy whole kilos; Cinnamon Vanilla's kilo is 5.9% cheaper per gram than its 100g. No oil here is listed in a 5 kg bottle, so Sandalwood's 5.8 kg arrives as nine bottles; ask on WhatsApp rather than assume a larger format exists.

A swap changes only its own line. Apple Cinnamon at ₹4,743.60 a kilo (₹75.90 per candle) fits the gourmand slot; Dark Vanilla Oud at ₹5,691 (₹91.06) is the step up for oud. For half this run, see how much fragrance oil is needed for 500 Diwali candles; for other sizes and loads at 1,000, how much fragrance oil you need for 1,000 candles.

Wicks, jars and the full order, costed

A thousand wicks is the one quantity CSI lists as a single pack: ₹5,900 for Eco Candle Wicks Thin (C1), ₹9,440 for Thick (C2) and ₹12,000 for Cotton Braided Wicks Ready Made, whose page states they are for candles "exceeding 8 cm". Performance Wooden Wicks have no 1,000-pack; 10 × 100 is ₹41,300. The Eco wick page gives no diameter guidance, so buy the wick your burn test passed in your jar; the costed run uses C2, which the coloured 200ml Salsa jar pages say "Pairs well with".

For the jar, the 200ml Salsa Glass Jar (Golden Lid) is ₹29.50 each in 50s and 100s against ₹40.12 in the 5-pack. No 1,000-jar pack is listed, so ten 100-packs and one 50-pack give 1,050. Its page states no dimensions — measure one before choosing a wick or a shipping box.

Inside each candle: wax ₹93.36, wick ₹9.44, jar ₹29.50, wick sticker ₹2.50 and care sticker ₹0.70 — ₹135.50 before fragrance. With oil the four candles cost ₹215.93 (Sandalwood), ₹208.38 (Cinnamon Vanilla), ₹208 (Woody Oud) and ₹198.27 (Jasmine), a weighted ₹208.44. The ₹8,065.08 gap to the order total is the allowance and spares — money to expect to spend, not a saving to find. Swap the wax and only that line moves: ₹2,33,905.84 on Luxury Soy Wax Chunks, ₹1,95,943.84 on Eco Soy CSI 400. The same bill of materials for everyday production is in raw materials required to make 1,000 candles.

Where to buy it, and what goes on WhatsApp

Every extra supplier is another delivery your first load waits for. Check six things: all four heavy lines in bulk packs on one order; published load and temperatures for the wax; listed prices you can order at today; MSDS and IFRA documents if a corporate client asks; a GST invoice; and someone you can ask about dispatch timing before paying. The longer-term checklist is in what to look for in one reliable supplier from startup to scale.

Every quantity in the order can be bought at listed prices today, and those prices are the most you will pay. A consolidated 1,000-candle price is not listed, and we won't guess it — it depends on the lines, whether you will repeat the order, and where it is going.

Frequently asked questions