Fragrance load is the proportion of fragrance oil to wax in a candle, measured by weight — a candle with 10% fragrance load carries one ounce of fragrance oil for every ten ounces of wax. It is the dial that sets scent throw, and because fragrance oil is one of the most expensive ingredients in a candle, it is also a major lever on cost.
Each wax has a maximum load it can hold before the oil separates or weeps, and that ceiling varies by wax type — soy waxes commonly sit in the high single digits, paraffin tends to hold more, and beeswax less. Treat any figure as a starting point and confirm the maximum against your specific wax supplier's technical data sheet, since blends differ widely. The load is bounded by chemistry as well as budget: pushing toward the maximum strengthens the scent but raises cost per candle and can hurt burn quality, making fragrance load a genuine cost-versus-quality tradeoff.
For costing, fragrance load is what turns a bulk fragrance-oil purchase into a precise per-candle ingredient cost: the load percentage and the candle's wax weight determine exactly how much oil each unit consumes in its recipe.
Related terms
Recipe
A defined set of ingredients, quantities, steps, and equipment needed to produce a finished good. Recipes automatically calculate production costs based on current ingredient prices.
COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)
The total cost of materials, labor, and overhead directly tied to producing the goods you sell. Tracked automatically through purchases, recipes, and production runs.
Ingredient
A raw material or component purchased from vendors and used in recipes to produce finished goods. Examples: flour, beads, essential oils, fabric.
Unit Conversion
The automatic conversion between different units of measure (e.g., pounds to ounces, cups to milliliters). Allows purchasing in bulk units and using smaller units in recipes.