Pour Day Planner

Why a pour day needs its own plan

Working out the wax for one jar is easy. Pour day is where it goes wrong: twelve tumblers, six tins and a tray of clamshells, all in the same scent, and a pitcher that only holds four pounds. You melt what you think is enough, add oil, pour, and find the last two tins empty and no more fragrance-loaded wax to fill them.

The planner does the sums for the whole session at once. You list each vessel with its count and fill weight, and it gives you three things you need before you turn on the heat: how much wax to have on the bench in total, how much fragrance oil to have ready, and how to split both into pours that fit your pot.

How the numbers are built

For each line, the planner multiplies the count by the fill weight to get the finished weight of that line. It then splits that weight into wax and oil using your load and the basis you picked. With “% of wax”, which most suppliers use, the wax is the finished weight divided by one plus the load, and the oil is the rest. So a 6.5 oz tumbler at 8% has 6.02 oz of wax and 0.48 oz of oil.

The extra percent goes on top of the total, not on each line, because waste happens per pour, not per jar. Then the total wax is divided by what your pot holds, rounded up to whole pours, and the wax and oil are shared equally across those pours. Equal pours mean every candle gets the same load, whichever pour it came from.

A pour day, step by step

1. Prep the vessels. Wash and fully dry them, set the wicks with stickers, and line them up in the order on your sheet. Warm glass slightly in cold rooms; cold jars cause pull-away and wet spots.
2. Weigh the first pour of wax straight into the pitcher. Melt it to the add-oil temperature your supplier gives. Our wax specs page lists them side by side.
3. Add the dye first, then the oil, and stir gently for a full two minutes so the oil binds with the wax. Rushing this step is a common cause of sweating candles.
4. Cool to pour temperature and pour in the order on the sheet, largest vessels first. Small tins and melts are forgiving with the dregs of a pour.
5. Repeat for each pour, then cure the batch for the time your wax maker recommends before test burning or selling.

Printing the sheet

Press “Print pour sheet” and only the sheet prints, with the table of vessels, totals per pour and your wax’s fragrance check. Pin it above the bench and tick off each pour. Keep it afterwards with the date and scent; when a customer asks about a candle from that batch, you have the exact recipe.

Planning melts in the same session

Wax melts and tarts are usually poured in a harder wax with its own limits. If you pour them in the same wax as your containers, add them as a line here. If they use a melt wax such as Golden Brands 494, plan them separately with the wax melt calculator so each wax gets the right load and pour temperature.

Questions makers ask

Sources we checked

1. CandleScience wax guide: add-oil and pour temperatures
2. Lone Star Candle Supply: fragrance load
3. Candles Molds: candle wax calculator

Numbers last checked 2026-10-21. How we check them. If your supplier says something different, tell us.