How full to fill it

A small decision that shows on every unit and affects the declared weight.

The fill line

Most container candles are filled to somewhere between one and two centimeters below the rim.

That gap is doing three jobs: room for the lid to seat without touching the wax, protection for the surface in transit, and somewhere for the label to sit without crossing the fill line.

Why not to the brim

A brim-full candle looks generous and behaves badly. The lid marks it, the surface gets damaged in transit, and a full melt pool close to the rim is a spill risk if the candle is moved while lit.

It also leaves no room for a second pour, which means every sinkhole is a reject rather than a fix.

Consistency across a batch

Fill by weight rather than by eye, at least until your eye is calibrated.

A visible difference in fill level between two candles on a shelf is the kind of thing a wholesale buyer notices and a maker does not, because the maker sees them one at a time.

And the fill weight is what the label declares, so a drifting fill is a labeling problem as well as an appearance one.

The second pour and the lid

If you second-pour, the first pour goes lower and the top-up brings it to the line. Plan the line for the finished level, not the first one.

Then check the lid actually clears. A candle filled to a line that works with a metal lid can touch a wooden one, and wax on the underside of a lid is what a customer sees first when they open it.

References