How Much Soy Wax per Candle? Jar Size Chart and How Many Candles 10 lb Makes

The question arrives in two shapes. Either you have a jar and want to know how much wax to buy, or you have a bag of wax and want to know how many candles it will make. Both come down to one fact: soy wax is lighter than water, so a container that holds 8 fl oz of water holds about 7 oz of wax, not 8. Everything below follows from that.

The short answer

So the most common version of the question, how many candles does 10 lbs of soy wax make, has a plain answer: about 25 standard 8 oz jars, about 50 four-ounce tins, or about a dozen 16 oz jars. If you fill right to the shoulder of the jar instead of leaving headspace, knock 10% off.

How much soy wax per jar: the chart

A jar's label size is its brimful water capacity. You never pour to the brim, so the useful number is the water it holds to your fill line, usually about half an inch down. Multiply that by 0.86 to get grams of wax, or by 0.9 to go from fluid ounces to ounces of wax.

Soy wax density: weight to volume

Solid soy wax has a density of about 0.90 to 0.92 g/cm³. Molten, at pouring temperature, it is about 0.86 to 0.88 g/ml, and that is the number that matters, because you pour it liquid. It is also why the 0.86 factor works: one milliliter of container space takes about 0.86 g of molten wax, and the slight shrinkage on setting is what leaves the top a hair below your pour line.

This is also the answer to 1 pound of wax to ml: a pound of soy wax is roughly half a liter of liquid, and a kilogram is a little over a liter. Flake wax in the bag takes up far more room than that because of the air between flakes, which is why a 10 lb box looks like it should make more candles than it does.

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Batch calculator: start from the wax you have

Switch the calculator below to Start from wax on hand, enter your bag weight and the container, and it returns how many whole candles you can make, how much fragrance oil to buy for them, and how much wax will be left over. The quick buttons cover the usual bag sizes.

Fragrance oil changes the math

Fragrance oil is dosed as a percentage of the wax weight, usually 6 to 10%, and it has volume of its own. The calculator and the charts above treat it as extra, which is correct if you pour to about half an inch below the rim: the oil simply fills part of the headspace. If you insist on filling exactly to a line, reduce the wax by the fragrance share. At 8% that means about 7.5% less wax per jar, so a 10 lb bag stretches to 27 eight-ounce jars instead of 25. Doses by weight are in how much fragrance oil per pound of wax.

Why you always run short, and how much to buy

• Headspace. The chart assumes half an inch. A deeper fill line or a wide-mouth jar changes the wax per candle by 5 to 10%.
• The pot. A film of wax stays on the melting pot, the thermometer and the stirring spoon. Budget 1 to 2% per batch, more for small batches.
• Sinkholes and second pours. Soy shrinks as it sets. If you top up sinkholes with a second pour, that wax has to come from somewhere; keep 3 to 5% back for it.
• Test candles. Every new fragrance or wick deserves a 4 oz test. Count them.

A safe rule for buying: work out the wax for your jars from the chart, then add 10%. For a run of 25 eight-ounce candles that is 6.3 oz × 25 = 158 oz, plus 10% = about 174 oz, which is just under 11 lb. Buy the 10 lb bag and the 1 lb sample, or buy 12 lb and keep the rest for the next batch; soy wax stores for a year or more in a cool, dark, closed box.