How much wax you need

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated October 2026

On this page5

Weight, not volume The arithmetic Losses Checking it References

The number to establish once per vessel and per wax, then reuse.

Weight, not volume

A vessel is specified by volume. Wax is bought and used by weight. The two are joined by density, which differs between waxes.

As a working figure, a container takes roughly 80 percent of its stated fluid volume in ounces as weight of soy wax. An 8 oz jar takes around 6.4 oz.

That is a starting point, not an answer. Fill one to your fill line, weigh it, and use that number.

The arithmetic

Wax per vessel = fill weight x (1 minus the fragrance load).

Fragrance per vessel = fill weight x the load.

At a 6.4 oz fill and 8 percent: wax 5.89 oz, fragrance 0.51 oz.

For a batch of 20: wax 117.8 oz, fragrance 10.2 oz, plus losses.

Work backwards for a target the same way: 500 candles at 6.4 oz is 3,200 oz of finished candle, which is 200 lb, which is several pours rather than one.

Losses

Residue in the melting vessel and the pouring pot, which is proportionally worse on small batches.

The second pour reserve, if unused.

Spillage and wiped excess.

Five percent is a reasonable assumption and ten is realistic early on. Measure your own by weighing the pot before and after.

Checking it

Weigh ten filled vessels from a run and look at the spread, not just the average.

A wide spread is inconsistent pouring, which is a yield problem and a declared net weight problem at once.

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.