Candles
Candles are the combustion family: a wax and a wick in a container, a moulded pillar, or a filled tin, which burns to give light, heat or scent. The product is the assembly, so the fields cover each part: the wax and its blend, the wick and its material, the fragrance and how it is loaded, the vessel or mould, the fill weight, and the safety and labelling requirements of the market it is sold into.
What this family includes
The family covers container candles, filled tins, moulded pillars and tapers, and the scented variants of each. It covers the two-wick and multi-wick products, the tealight format, and the wax melts sold for use in a warming lamp.
Inside a scented candle the fragrance is not a liquid sitting in the wax but material that has been introduced into it and released as the wax melts. How that was done, and with what carrier, is the field that decides how the candle will smell and how it will burn.
Not the same as
A candle is not a diffuser, and the two are sold in the same shops with the same words on the box. One evaporates a liquid through reeds; the other melts a wax and burns a wick, adding combustion products to the room as well as scent.
It is not an incense stick, which is a formed product on a core. It is not a room spray. And a scented wax melt for a warming lamp is a different product again: it never burns, and the fragrance is delivered only by the heat of the lamp.
Material and format fields
The fields are: the wax or wax blend and the proportion in which it is used; the wick, its material and its size; the fragrance and the carrier it was introduced in; the fill weight and the net weight of the product; the vessel and the glass, where there is one; the number of wicks; the burn characteristics as the seller states them; the batch reference and the date; the safety labelling and the transport classification for the destination market; and the allergen declaration.
The standards apply because a scented candle is a finished consumer product with a fragrance mixture in it. IFRA states that the applicable category is determined from the intended use, that quantitative limits are expressed in the finished consumer product, that conformity for a mixture is established by the formulator or supplier for that stated use, and that the standards do not exempt a company from applicable national or local regulation, which for a candle includes the fire-safety and labelling rules of the market it is sold into.
Comparisons
A scented candle and an unscented one are the same product with a fragrance mixture added, and the addition changes the burn as well as the smell. A container candle and a moulded pillar are different products with different uses, since one is meant to be moved and the other is not.
And a candle against a diffuser or a room spray is a comparison of mechanism, which is the comparison that decides which of them the buyer should be buying at all.
Buyer requirements
Ask for the wax, the wick and the fragrance carrier together, because the three interact and a seller who answers only one of them has answered the easiest. Ask the fill weight against the vessel size, since a small vessel filled high is a different product from a large one filled to the same line.
Then ask the burn statement as the seller puts it, and buy one before buying a case. A candle that burns unevenly or excessively hot is a defect of the assembly, and it is easier to find out about one than about twelve.
Related suppliers
The directory lists perfume manufacturers, raw-material suppliers and packaging suppliers, and a scented candle is usually bought from a combination of them: the fragrance from an oil supplier, the vessel from a packaging supplier, and the fill from whoever will do it. A buyer who wants a line rather than a batch needs to know who is actually making the finished candle.
Relevant guides
Reading intended-use instructions shows where the conditions sit on a scented candle. Understanding perfume concentration labels covers the labelling convention used across scented products. Why processing location is a separate fact applies when the filling is done in a third country.
- Search the supplier directory
- Start a request for quote
- Read reading intended-use instructions
This page defines the family and the fields a buyer should fill in. It does not state a wax composition, a fragrance load, a burn time, a price or a safety certification, and it does not establish that any product conforms to any standard.
- IFRA โ Understanding the IFRA StandardsEstablishes that the IFRA Standards operate through three kinds of control โ prohibition of a material, restriction of the maximum quantity used, and specification of conditions on a material โ and that quantitative limits are expressed as an upper concentration in the finished consumer product rather than in the fragrance mixture. Establishes that product types are set out in the guidance documents and that the applicable category is determined from the product's intended use. Establishes that IFRA itself does not issue certificates, does not authorise any third party to certify on its behalf, does not certify products, and that a Certificate of Conformity does not replace a safety assessment. It does not establish the safety of any particular product, the concentration of any material in any product, or compliance by any named supplier.
- IFRA โ Using the IFRA StandardsEstablishes that conformity for a fragrance mixture's intended use is established by the fragrance-mixture formulator or supplier, that a Certificate of Conformity applies exclusively to fragrance mixtures intended for incorporation into finished consumer products, and that IFRA Certificates are generally not issued for raw materials. Establishes that the final decision and responsibility for the finished product lies with the end consumer product manufacturer, and that conformity with the Standards does not exempt a company from applicable national or local regulation. It does not establish that any named supplier holds a certificate, nor what any certificate says about a finished product.
- IFRA โ Standards libraryEstablishes that the IFRA Standards are held in a searchable database and that each record can be filtered by control type โ restriction, specification or prohibition โ as well as by amendment, CAS number and status. It is the place a specific limit is looked up. It does not establish which category a product belongs to, and it does not establish that any finished product conforms to any standard.
OudGuide editorial review ยท 2026-10-21
Reviewed against the cited sources. The family boundary was checked against the format descriptions elsewhere in the encyclopedia, every statement about the fragrance-mixture standards was checked against the scope of the source cited for it, and no composition, concentration, price or grade is stated anywhere on the page.