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Measuring wax and fragrance

 

OK so you’re setting out to reuse or up-cycle your funky little jar and turn it into a beautiful scented soy candle. Awesome! You’re going to want to figure out how much wax to use, how much fragrance, and then what size wick to choose. With a little basic math and a ruler, we’ll make you an expert in no time!Little Owl

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Jar Fill Volume

The first thing to do is work out how much liquid your jar holds up to the point it will be filled with wax. If you are using our jars, we’ve worked this out for you already, just look for the “recommended fill volume” on the product page. In this example we’ll use the Libbey 478 Status jar with a RFV of 300ml. If you are using your own jar, just fill it with water to the level you plan to fill with wax and measure the amount of water in the jar with a measuring jug.

Example Fill Volume

Fragrance Load

Fragrance load (FL) simply means the percentage of fragrance you’ll mix into your jar along with your candle wax, it is always expressed as a percentage. As a rule of thumb we recommend using a fragrance load of 10% to ensure a good scent throw (the term for how amazing your candle smells when it is burning). Now that you know how much liquid you’ll be using it’s easy to work out how much fragrance to put in. Just multiply your jar volume by 10%

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300ml x 10% = 30ml Fragrance

Calculate Wax Weight

By now you know that you need 300ml of liquid to fill this jar and that 30ml is going to be fragrance. That means you need 270ml of liquid wax right? Absolutely spot on. But, HOLD THE PHONE, we sell wax in flakes….not liquid! Well this is the time your parents talked about when maths would actually come in useful for something beautiful. You want to convert your liquid volume into the weight of wax flakes using this magic number…

270ml x .83 = 224 grams of wax

Now it's time to measure up!

The last piece of the puzzle is to add a wick to your candle, because without a wick, well all you have is a giant soy melt!
Don’t worry, it’s easy….grab your ruler and let’s go!
Learn how to choose the right wick

Still confused?

If you are still not quite sure about how to measure out the right fragrance and wax or would like some help with the size of wick to use then why not attend one of our candle classes. We run these every month but it pays to book early. We also have pre-measured candle kits and tried and tested candle making recipes for the perfect candle.

Buy a Candle Kit
Book a Candle Class
Try One of our Recipes