A Quick Guide to Measuring Candle Wax & FO for Your Candle Jar

Candle making can be a fascinating hobby or business venture, but when it comes to measuring candle wax and fragrance oil combo to add to your candle jar, it can be enough to make even the most seasoned candle maker break a sweat. But fear not, my friends! I will guide you on how to make the right calculation so you have the right amount each and every time.

First things first, let’s grab our trusty scale and place our candle jar on top of it. Fill it up with water to the point where you would normally add your wax and FO. Now, take note of the weight in grams. For this example, let’s say the weight is 300 grams.

Let me guess, you think we are done measuring candle wax? If it were only that easy. Did you know that wax is less dense than water? On average, candle wax is 86% less dense than water. So, we need to do a little math to figure out how much wax and FO we actually need. To do this, we simply multiply the water weight (300 grams) by 86% (0.86) to get our wax and FO weight (258 grams).

So, from our calculation we need 258 grams of candle wax and fragrance oil combined. Need a quick breakdown of how much fragrance oil should be added to our 258 grams of candle wax, fragrance oil combo?

No worries. I normally use a 9% fragrance oil load, which means we need to figure out 9% of 258. So, let’s multiply 258 by 9% (.09). That equals 23 grams. So, that means that from our 258 grams of candle wax, fragrance oil combo we need 23 grams of fragrance oil. So, let’s figure out the candle wax from that. To do that we subtract the 23 gram fragrance oil number from our total amount (258 grams) to get our candle wax weight (235 grams).

So, in summary, for our candle jar, we need 235 grams of candle wax and 23 grams of FO if we are using a 9% fragrance oil load.

And, in case you’re still feeling overwhelmed, check out my video dedicated to measuring candle wax & FO for your candle jar.