Selling it

Who you buy from

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated October 2026

On this page5

Four supply chains What to judge them on The question to ask about vessels Second-sourcing References

Four different kinds of supplier, and the one people think least about is the one that matters most.

Four supply chains

Wax, from candle supply houses or direct from a distributor at volume.

Fragrance, from fragrance houses that formulate for candles specifically.

Wicks, usually from the same candle supply houses, and worth buying by the series you tested.

Vessels and lids, from packaging suppliers, which is a different world with larger minimums and longer lead times.

What to judge them on

Documentation: data sheets for wax, safety data sheets and IFRA statements for fragrance, and a clear statement of what a vessel is specified for.

Consistency between lots, which in natural wax is a real differentiator.

Whether they tell you when something changes. Wax reformulations and fragrance reformulations both happen and both invalidate your testing, and most suppliers will not mention it unless asked.

Lead time, which is what actually stops production.

The question to ask about vessels

Is this container intended and specified for candle use, and is it annealed to ASTM F2179?

A packaging supplier sells jars for many purposes and may never have been asked. The answer, including a vague one, tells you what you have.

It is also the question that separates a supplier who understands the application from one who is selling you glass.

Second-sourcing

Identify an alternative for wax, wick and vessel before you need one.

And understand that a second source is a retest rather than a swap: a different wax, a different wick series or a nominally identical jar from another maker is a new system.

Which means the time to qualify a second source is a quiet month, not the week your supplier goes out of stock.

References

No published source. This page is written from practice rather than from published guidance. No extension service or agency publishes on this question for candles, so nothing here is cited, and it should be weighed as experience and not as a standard.

Written from the federal regulation, the CPSC material and the published scope of the ASTM candle standards. The standards themselves are copyrighted documents that must be bought; what is described here is their scope and requirements as published, not their text. Your own burn testing against your own vessel and wick is what establishes whether a candle you made is safe.