A Comprehensive Guide to Fragrance Load Calculation
You've used our calculator, but you're not like any other candle makers – you want to understand your craft to become an expert in your field, and we love that!
There are many candle fragrance load calculators out there, and you might be wondering why our calculator isn't giving you the result you expected. Shouldn't it be as simple as multiplying the percentage of the candle's fragrance load by the fill weight of your candle?
What Is Fragrance Load?
Candle Fragrance load is the percentage of fragrance added to the wax of your candle. For example, if you have 240g of wax and 24g of fragrance in your candle, the fragrance load would be 10%:
Fragrance Weight / Wax Weight = Fragrance Load
24g / 240g = 0.1 = 10%
Fragrance load is used by manufacturers to guide candle makers on how much fragrance their wax can handle, often referred to as Max Fragrance Load.
❌ Common Mistakes
Adding fragrance weight to wax weight
One of the most common mistakes is to use the fragrance load and multiply it by the amount of wax used in a candle.
Wax Weight * Fragrance Load = Fragrance Weight
Wax Weight + Fragrance Weight = Fill Weight
Let's say you have a candle with a fill weight of 240g, containing exclusively wax for the moment, and you want to add a fragrance load of 12%, the maximum recommended fragrance load by the wax's manufacturer.
Calculate fragrance weight:
240g * 12% = 28.8g
Calculate fill weight:
240g + 24g = 268.8g
Verify fragrance load:
28.8g / 240g = 0.12 = 12%
Also the fragrance weight is accurate with this formula and the fragrance load is exactly what we wanted, our target fill weight has increased by 28.8g. Not the end of the world, but what if we did not want to compromise on the fill weight?
Substracting fragrance weight from wax weight
To avoid changing the fill weight after loading your wax with fragrance, it may be tempting to substract the fragrance weight from the wax weight so the fill weight remains the same:
Wax Weight * Fragrance Load = Fragrance Weight
Wax Weight - Fragrance Weight = Fill Weight
Calculate fragrance weight:
240g * 12% = 28.8g
Update wax weight:
240g - 28.8g = 211.2g
Calculate fill weight:
211.2g + 28.8g = 240g
Perfect! The fill weight has remained the same. But wait! Something else has changed. Remember that the fragrance load is the ratio of fragrance compared to the wax used in your candle.
Verify fragrance load:
28.8g / 211.2g = 0.14 = 14%
No, no, no! Our fragrance load has increased 😱! ~2% over the maximum recommended fragrance load. Even if our fill weight remained untouched, we have dangerously overloaded our wax with fragrance.
✅ The Right Way
Now we have covered the common mistakes made, we want a formula that does not overload our candle with fragrance, and does not compromise our candle's fill weight.
Uncompromising Fragrance Load Formula
How not to compromise on the fill weight and fragrance load? First, we need to calculate the wax weight based on a given fill weight. Then, we use that amount, substract it from the fill weight, resulting in the amount of fragrance to be added to the candle.
Calculate wax weight:
Fill Weight / (1 + Fragrance Load) = Wax Weight
240g / (1 + 12%) = 214.3g
Calculate fragrance weight:
Fill Weight - Wax Weight = Fragrance Weight
240g - 214.3g = 25.7g
Verify fill weight:
Wax Weight + Fragrance Weight = Fill Weight
214.3g + 25.7g = 240g
Pefect! We haven't compromised on the fill weight!
Verify fragrance load:
Fragrance Weight / Wax Weight = Fragrance Load
25.7g / 214.3g = 0.12 = 12%
Excellent! The fragrance load wasn't compromised either!
We finally have a formula that gives us exactly what we need, without any compromises and causing fragrance overload.
