Candles for Dubai hotels, spas and restaurants: what to order

Size a hotel, spa or restaurant order zone by zone: burn points times hours lit per month, divided by burn time (about 25 hours for 100 ml, 35 for 200 ml, 45 for 300 ml). Typical split: 100 ml for guest rooms and tables, 200 ml for spa rooms, 300 ml for lobbies, lounges and large dining rooms.

Most enquiries from hospitality groups start with a fragrance question. The purchasing question underneath it is volume, and the label and the box sit on top of that number. The burn times above are the published figures for these candles, hand-poured in Dubai from soy wax. They are approximate, since wick and fragrance shift them, so treat the result as a planning figure and check it against your first month of use.

Below is the arithmetic we run with hotel groups, spa operators and F&B companies before we quote anything, plus what decides whether the programme survives its second year: the same scent across properties and seasons, who owns the candle on the floor, and how orders line up with minimums and lead times.

The formula, and why it is the only one you need

Burn points on the property, multiplied by hours lit per day, multiplied by days per month, divided by the burn time of the format. That gives candles per month for that zone.

Burn points means physical locations where a flame is lit, not rooms or tables you own. A restaurant with 60 tables that lights 40 on a normal service has 40 burn points; a spa with eight treatment rooms running six on a weekday has six. Floor area does not enter the formula at all, because square metres do not burn wax: a candle lit twelve hours a day on a console table burns the same in a small room or a vast one.

Hours lit per day is the one people get wrong. A reception desk candle lit at the start of a shift and blown out at the end burns eight hours; a lobby arrangement left on from opening to close burns twelve or more; a restaurant table candle burns four, because the service is four hours long. Same jar, three different consumption rates.

Five worked examples from typical property layouts

Put your own numbers in place of ours; the method does not change. The table counts 30 days in a month.

Look at the last row again: it is the one that surprises finance. Forty tables at four hours a service means roughly 192 candles a month and 2,304 a year for one restaurant, against 384 a year for the lobby at 300 ml. The lobby looks like the important zone, yet the restaurant is where most of the money goes.

Order a year of the 200 ml lines together and they clear the minimum: reception at 84 a year plus spa treatment rooms at 372 a year gives 456 units of one size in one order, past the 300-piece minimum that reception alone would not reach.

Guest-room gift candles use a different counter, since they leave the building: rooms times occupancy times 30, divided by average length of stay, gives arrivals. Forty suites at 80 percent occupancy with a three-night stay is 320 arrivals a month, or 3,840 a year, more than the whole ambient programme in the table.

Which format belongs in which zone

The 100 ml is the table and giveaway size. On a restaurant table it holds six four-hour services before replacement, which fits a weekly par-stock routine; as a guest-room or turndown gift it is the right size for a bedside tray and a box. A large dining room or terrace where the jar must read from across the room can take the 300 ml, about eleven services per jar.

The 200 ml is the workhorse for enclosed rooms running a defined session: treatment rooms, meeting rooms, private dining. Thirty-five hours means a treatment room burning six hours a day gets about six days out of one jar.

The 300 ml belongs in open zones where nobody counts hours: lobby, lounge, pool reception, corridors. Forty-five hours is roughly four days at twelve hours a day, so jars get changed about twice a week, on a schedule.

One boundary worth naming: the range is jars only, from 100 ml up, with no disposable tealights; a jar costs more per unit and lasts about six services.

Repeatability beats the perfect fragrance

The scent a guest meets in your Dubai lobby in March has to be the same scent in September, and the same scent in your second and third property. This is where candle programmes tend to fail, and quietly: stock runs out, the original fragrance is unavailable that week, a close substitute gets approved by whoever is on shift, and within a year the group has three different lobby scents with no one able to say when it happened.

Lock one fragrance per zone type across the group, written into the purchasing spec by name, not description. Order ahead against the annual number instead of reordering when stock runs out; larger orders also reach the volume bands that small top-ups never do.

We supply up to 15,000 candles a month, more by agreement. For a rollout across several properties, give us monthly or seasonal volumes and delivery dates per property, and we plan supply around them. Reorders follow your approved design and fragrance, and each one is paid 50 percent to start and 50 percent before dispatch.

Choosing fragrance by zone

The range runs to more than 150 fragrances in six families, and the families are not evenly sized, which matters when shortlisting.

Spa and wellness zones sit best in the herbal and fresh registers: clean, green, not sweet, nothing that competes with massage oil or steam. Herbs, spices and greens is the largest family at 38 options; fresh and aquatic is the smallest at 8, so shortlist those early if one is non-negotiable.

Lobbies and lounges take woody and oriental work: oud, amber, sandalwood, frankincense, 27 options where a Dubai property can sound local without a cliché.

Restaurants want the quietest thing on the list: a candle on a dining table competes with the food, and it should lose, so pick something neutral with a low throw. We will talk you out of an oud on a table, and if you insist, we will still supply it; it is your dining room.

Shortlist by family first, name second. Browse the fragrance families and order the shortlist as samples, so the decision gets made on a real table in your own lighting. A sample costs AED 100 with a sticker label or AED 250 with print on the jar, both credited against an order of 300 pieces or more. Availability of each fragrance is confirmed when the project is approved.

Soy wax, hand pouring and what they mean on a working property

The candles are soy wax, hand-poured in Dubai, in glass jars with a bamboo or metal lid that goes back on between uses to keep dust off the wax. Check your fire-safety policy for each area before you order. For the HSE file, wax safety and technical data sheets, IFRA Category 12 certificates from the fragrance suppliers, fragrance safety data sheets and an ingredient list for labels are available on request.

How evenly a jar burns on your floor depends largely on use. A first burn cut short leaves a ring of hard wax on the glass while the wick sinks in the middle, and a tunnelled candle in a lobby looks neglected long before it stops working. Soot is the maintenance line nobody puts in the tender: a burn point running twelve hours a day under the same soffit will show you over a year how much any candle leaves behind. Wooden wicks are an option at AED 15 extra per candle; they crackle, which suits a lounge and works against a treatment room where the point is quiet.

Who on the floor owns the candle

A hospitality candle programme lives or dies on a short daily routine that somebody has to actually do.

Trim the wick before lighting, every time: a long wick smokes and burns unevenly, and trimming costs nothing. Let the first burn run long enough for the melt pool to reach the glass edge to edge, since it sets the pattern for every burn after. Stop the jar when only a thin layer of wax remains at the base, not burned down to the glass; the empty jar washes out and can be reused on the property. Keep stock out of direct sun and in air-conditioned storage: a case left in a loading bay in August is a case with a changed surface by September.

Name one person per outlet who owns replacement and par stock, typically the restaurant manager, the spa supervisor or the front office duty manager. If nobody owns it, candles get lit by whoever remembers, and the burn rate becomes impossible to forecast or budget.

Minimums, discount bands and delivery

Published prices are from AED 70 for 100 ml, AED 90 for 200 ml and AED 110 for 300 ml per candle, for 300 pieces or more per size, excluding VAT. That base covers the jar, a standard wick, soy wax, a bamboo lid or a silver or gold metal lid, and one base fragrance. The final figure depends on the fragrance, the jar design and the packaging, so treat these as the floor of the budget.

Packaging adds per unit: kraft box AED 5, sticker on the box AED 5, printed box AED 15, fabric pouch AED 3, with packaging design quoted on request. Most ambient programmes need none of it, since the candle goes straight to a table; guest-room and gift programmes usually do, one more reason the room gift is a separate budget line.

The minimum is 300 pieces per size. Different fragrances can share the same size and printed design, so a spa running two scents across treatment rooms and lounge still only has to clear 300 on each size, not on each scent.

Volume discounts are 5 percent from 1,000 pieces, 7.5 percent from 3,000 and 10 percent from 5,000, and orders of 10,000 or more get individual terms. Delivery within Dubai is included on every order. Elsewhere in the UAE it is free from 1,000 pieces, and smaller orders are delivered at additional cost; for Saudi Arabia and the other GCC countries, delivery is quoted on request.

Add up the worked property above (five zones, three sizes) and you get 3,312 pieces a year. Placed as one order, that lands in the 7.5 percent band with Dubai delivery included; split into quarterly orders of about 830, each one stays under the first band at full price. Add the room gifts from the same example and a single order passes 5,000 pieces, the 10 percent band. Current terms are on the pricing section.

Jars come in clear for every size, and in matte black or frosted white for 200 and 300 ml; the 100 ml is clear only. Matte black suits a dark lobby palette, and frosted white diffuses the flame in a spa.

Putting your own brand on the jar

For a hotel group this is usually the point of the exercise. A sticker label adds AED 5 per candle and takes about a week after approval. Print in one colour adds AED 15, runs 360 degrees around the jar and takes 10 to 14 working days after approval. Foil in gold, rose gold or silver is available, and a printed design starts at 300 pieces, with different fragrances allowed to share one design.

To get a quote that means something, send the burn point list with hours per day, the formats per zone, jar finish (clear, matte black or frosted white), logo in vector, quantity per size and the date you need the candles on property. For a seasonal push, work back from that date: printed jars need the brief five weeks ahead, labels three.

Projects we have supplied at volume include a retail collection of 1,000+ candles for Maison Morganti, 500 exhibition gifts for NAKHLA in red branding on frosted glass, 300 developer gifts for ORA in white graphics on frosted glass, and 500 candles for EURO TECH in clear jars with bamboo lids and stickers. Send the burn point list and we will come back with a price per size, the band your volume lands in, a sample per area and a reorder plan: request a quote.

FAQ

How many candles a month does a hotel lobby need?

Count the burn points and hours, then divide by the format. Four points lit twelve hours a day is 1,440 burn hours a month: 32 candles at 300 ml, 42 at 200 ml or 58 at 100 ml. The lobby is rarely the expensive zone; the restaurant and guest room gift are.

Which size should we use for a guest room gift?

100 ml. It fits a bedside tray and a gift box, and at about 25 hours it lasts well past the stay. Add a kraft box at AED 5 or a printed box at AED 15, and count volume from arrivals: rooms times occupancy times 30, divided by average length of stay.

What is the minimum order?

300 pieces per jar size, with one base fragrance included in the price; a printed design also starts at 300. Different fragrances can share one size and one design, so a three-scent spa programme only has to clear 300 on each size it uses.

Do you deliver to Saudi Arabia?

Yes. Delivery to Saudi Arabia and the other GCC countries is quoted on request. Within Dubai it is included on every order, and elsewhere in the UAE it is free from 1,000 pieces; smaller orders outside Dubai are delivered at additional cost.

How long does printing on the jar take?

10 to 14 working days after the project is approved, for print around the full circumference of the jar. Sticker labels take about a week. Add delivery on top; for seasonal dates, the calendar on our site asks for the brief five weeks ahead for printed jars and three weeks ahead for labels.