How much wax and fragrance oil do I need for my candles?

November 22, 2022

How Much Wax and Fragrance Oil Do I Need for Candles?

Candle making is an art form that requires careful attention to detail. The right amount of wax and fragrance oil will give your candles a pleasant scent without overpowering the room.

In this article, you will learn to calculate exactly how much wax and fragrance you need for your candles.

Gather Information

You can't solve a problem without knowing the right question!

There is a couple of information that you need before calculating the amount of wax and fragrance oil needed.

Wax Weight for Container Used

You need to know how much wax is needed to fill up the container to the desired point. Sometimes this information is provided by the supplier, but that isn't always the option.

We will discuss further details about manual approach to calculate the wax weight at the end.

For the sake of simplicity, we will assume that we are using Olii Craft 8oz candle tins in our examples, which needs 6 oz of wax and fragrance oil combined to reach the fill-line for each tin.

Fragrance Oil Percentage

Depending on the type of wax used, the maximum fragrance load is different. You can easily find this information from the wax supplier's website. Again, for simplicity purposes, we will use GB464 soy wax in this example, which has 10% of maximum fragrance load.

You can test any number less than the maximum fragrance load.

Calculations

Now we've gathered all the information we need to do the calculation. By following through the case example below, you will learn how to perform your own calculation.

Case Example

Container Used - Olii Craft 8oz candle tins (6oz of Wax and Fragrance Oil per container)

Number of Candles - 5

Fragrance Oil Percentage - 10%

Wax Weight Calculation

(Total Weight of Wax and Fragrance Oil per container) / (1 + Fragrance Oil Percentage)

= 6 / (1 + 10%)

= 5.45 oz / candle

Fragrance Oil Weight Calculation

Total Weight of Wax and Fragrance Oil per container - Wax Weight

= 6 - 5.45 = 0.55 oz / candle

Then you can simply multiply the above answers to number of candles you plan to make.

Total Wax Needed

= Wax Weight * Number of Candles

= 5.45 * 5

= 27.25 oz or 1 lb and 11.25 oz

Total Fragrance Oil Needed

= Fragrance Oil Weight * Number of Candles

= 0.45 * 5

= 2.25 oz

Manual Approach to Find the Wax Weight of a Container

Not all supplies come with needed information. In case the container supplier does not provide you with the wax weight information, you can easily find them by following the simple steps.

Place the empty container on a kitchen scale and zero out.
Pour melted wax into the container until it reaches the fill up line (Or wherever you desire)
Measure the weight.

Conclusion

It could be overwhelming especially when you are just starting out, and it is still time consuming even for professional candle makers.

It is never too much to emphasize the importance of accurate measurement of wax and fragrance oil when making candles with balanced scents.

Fortunately, we made a Wax and Fragrance Oil Calculator Tool helpful for candle makers to save the time and waste of materials.

Once you enter the necessary information, it will perform calculations automatically based on your inputs.

Make sure to click on "File" then "Make a copy" to use the calculator for personal needs.

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