How do I figure out how much wax & fragrance that I need? (2024)

How much fragrance and wax do I need? Probably one of the most asked questions. Honestly there isn't one straight answer.Different waxes have a maximum amount of fragrance oil "fo" that they can hold. Using too much isn't always a good thing. Think of wax like a sponge, the sponge can only hold so much liquid before it starts pouring back out. The same goes for waxes. So I highly recommend finding out what the recommended maximum is for the wax you are using.

Having too much fo can cause the oil to pool or leak out of the wax. This is actually a signature of Yankee candles. They use a lot of fo and that gives their candles that marble look. Another thing about having too much fo is that it can catch fire really easy and more so if you tend to blow out your candles. This can be dangerous and I highly recommend that you don't blow your candles out.

So when it come down to figuring out fo the first thing you need to do is figure out how much wax you are going to use. This step isn't easy either. Because jar sizes are based on volume and when candle making we do everything by weight. So a 9oz jar will hold actually about 6.5oz of wax based on weight. Now there is a couple ways you can figure this out. You could melt some wax and fill up the jar and weigh the jar to find out the oz "not fluid oz, fluid oz on a kitchen scale is based on water weight and is used for baking", then weigh the empty jar and find the difference. The other way that I recommend is to weigh the jar empty and then fill the jar with water and weigh it again. You will then take the filled jar weight minus the empty jar weight to see how much wax you will need. But doesn't water weigh different then wax weight? Yes, but not much difference at all.

So now that we know how much wax we need we will figure out how much fo we need. So earlier I said we need to find out the manufacture maximum fo so hopefully we got that. Now I am going to show you a few examples. I am going to say my jar will hold 16oz of wax and I use 464 soy wax that will hold a maximum of 12% fo. So I would take a calculator or a piece of paper and a pen if you are really good with math and figure it out like this. 16 x .12 and that will give me 1.92 which is how much fo I will need so that will be 1.92oz of fragrance oil and you could round this up to 2oz because it's so close. Another example if your wax will only hold 8% fo then we would do 16 x .08 which will give us 1.28oz of fo.

So hopefully this helps clear up any questions you have with figuring out how much wax and fo to use. I will give some basic fo equations below. I also want to add that each fragrance oil is different so some scents will be a lot stronger than others so you will have to experiment if they are too strong for you. I personally stay at the maximum for all the candles and wax melts I make, that doesn't mean you have to.

16oz wax will be used for each of these examples.