Candle Math

Candle making, fragrance oils are generally preferred over essential oils due to their stability, scent throw, and ability to be burned safely in candles. While essential oils can be used in candles, they are more volatile, prone to burning quickly, and may not have the same scent longevity as fragrance oils.   

Candle science says to use 16oz of wax and then if I want to use 10% FO I have to add 1.6 oz to my wax in order for it to have that quantity. Same with if you want to use 6,7,8% so you do 6% (etc) of 16 and it will give you an oz amount.  

If you follow the formulas that seem easiest, you’ll be calculating your fragrance oil based on the total weight of the candle. 

However, fragrance load actually refers to the percentage of fragrance oil compared to the wax weight. 

And figuring out how much wax you need is the hard part. 

The main formulas to follow are below– 

f = fragrance load in decimal form (5% →0.05)

Total weight ≈ water weight x 0.86 

Wax weight = Total weight ÷ (1 + f) 

Fragrance weight = Wax weight x f