About SoftCandle

What this is

SoftCandle is a small, independent site built around one job: help someone standing at a workbench with a bag of wax and a fragrance bottle get the numbers right before they pour. It is not a candle brand and it does not sell wax, wicks, or jars — it is a set of calculators and reference guides, paid for by on-page advertising.

The tools

There are six of them, and each solves one specific batch-planning problem: the Wax Calculator (how much wax a given container, count, and fill level actually needs), the Fragrance Load Calculator (turning a fragrance percentage into ounces or grams of oil), the Wick Size Guide (a starting-point cotton-wick recommendation by container diameter and wax type), the Burn Time Calculator (an estimate of burn hours from wax weight and type), the Candle Cost Calculator (wax, fragrance, wick, container, dye, and labels rolled into a cost per candle and a suggested retail price), and the Wax Melt-Point Guide(melt point, pour temperature, and cure time by wax type — soy, paraffin, beeswax, coconut, palm).

How they work

Each calculator takes the numbers you enter — container size, fragrance percentage, wax type, batch count — and runs them through a fixed formula or lookup table on the page. There is no account, no saved history, and nothing sent off for a human to review; the arithmetic just runs in your browser.

Where the numbers come from

The wick-size ranges, wax melt points, pour temperatures, and cure times are drawn from wax-supplier data sheets and conventions widely used in hobbyist and small-batch candle making, not from our own lab testing. Every wax behaves a little differently by brand and blend, and a container changes how a wick burns, so treat every result as a well-informed starting point — confirm wick choice and fragrance load with your own test burn before you commit a full batch.

The museum

Alongside the calculators sits the Candles & Light Museum, a set of galleries on the forms candles have taken, the waxes and materials behind them, and the lamps, holders, and rituals built around flame and scent. Its entries, images, and facts are drawn from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, credited as such, and it exists for background reading rather than as part of the tool set.

Guides

The blog and learnsection cover the parts a calculator can’t: how fragrance oils behave in different waxes, why a candle tunnels or sinks, and how to read a melt pool. They are meant to be read next to whichever tool you are using, not instead of it.

Straight talk about ads & advice

SoftCandle is independent and not affiliated with any wax, wick, or fragrance-oil brand named on the site, nor with any standards body its guides reference. It is supported entirely by advertising, which is how the tools stay free with no account required. Every number a tool returns is a general estimate, not professional or safety advice — always follow fire-safety and wax-handling precautions, never leave a burning candle unattended, and test-burn before finalizing a design. Questions about any of this go to the contact page.