Holiday, Bottled Up.
The coziest & yummiest
lineup yet. Shop the Collection.
Fall Fragrances.
Cozy, coastal, and everything in between.
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Fall Colorways.
Shop new colorways before they sell out.
Luxe for Less Fragrances.
6 new fragrances for summer.
Vessel Pricing Chart.
Price your products with confidence.
How to Read an IFRA.
The key to safe and compliant product creation
Every term you'll encounter making candles, soap, fragrance, bath & beauty, laundry & cleaning, and diffuser & incense products — plus the full vocabulary of running a maker business. 650+ terms across 8 glossaries, defined in plain language by makers, for makers.
eight glossaries, one place
Each glossary is built for a specific making discipline or business stage — with definitions written for the workbench and the boardroom, not the chemistry lab. Click through to the full glossary or use the A–Z jump nav above to find any term directly.
From your first pour to burn testing at scale — every term that matters in candle making, including wax types, wick sizing, fragrance load, cure time, and troubleshooting vocabulary.
Cold process, hot process, and melt & pour — all the terms you need to understand saponification, lye safety, trace, superfat, and the chemistry behind a good bar of soap.
The language of scent — from fragrance oil fundamentals and IFRA compliance to blending vocabulary, diffusion formats, and the difference between a top note and a base note.
Ingredient and formulation terms for makers creating skin care, body care, hair care, and lip products — written for DIY makers and small brand founders, not cosmetic chemists.
80+ terms for DIY laundry and home cleaning makers — surfactants, castile soap, pH, washing soda, soap nuts, wool dryer balls, functional fragrance, and green cleaning chemistry.
80+ terms for reed diffuser and incense makers — diffuser bases, rattan reeds, sola flowers, DPG, VOCs, fragrance load ratios, incense sticks and cones, and scentable beads.
The commercial vocabulary of running a product-based maker business — pricing, profit margins, sales channels, wholesale, branding, legal compliance, shipping, and the full makesy ecosystem explained plainly.
The complete commercial vocabulary for scaling makers — sourcing, manufacturing models, product development, pricing strategy, retail channels, operations, finance, and legal compliance for home fragrance and beauty brands.
most searched
Jump directly to the terms makers search for most across all eight glossaries — each one links straight to its full definition.
terms that cross categories
Some concepts appear across multiple glossaries but mean different things in each context — or build on each other as a maker grows from hobby to business. These are worth understanding in full.
Fragrance load — candle vs. soap
In candles, exceeding the maximum fragrance load causes seeping and fire risk — the fragrance oil pools at the bottom of the vessel and can't bond with the wax. In cold process soap, the concern is different: high fragrance loads cause acceleration, where the batter thickens too fast to work with. Same concept, very different consequences. See both: candle fragrance load · soap fragrance load
Usage rate — fragrance, soap, and beauty
Usage rate is the recommended percentage of an ingredient relative to total formula weight. In candles it is called fragrance load. In soap it applies to both fragrance and additives. In bath and body products it governs actives, preservatives, and emulsifiers. Every makesy ingredient page lists the recommended usage rate for its product format.
Cure time — candles vs. cold process soap
Both candles and cold process soap require cure time — but for completely different reasons. Candle cure time (48 hours to 2 weeks) allows wax and fragrance molecules to fully bond, improving hot throw. Soap cure time (4–6 weeks) allows saponification to fully complete and excess water to evaporate, producing a harder, milder, longer-lasting bar.
Cold throw vs. hot throw — diffusers vs. candles
A reed diffuser's entire scent performance is measured in cold throw — passive evaporation at room temperature with no heat source involved. A candle, by contrast, has both a cold throw (unlit) and a hot throw (lit, heat-amplified). Understanding which throw type applies to a format changes how you select and load fragrance oil for it.
Castile soap — soap making vs. home cleaning
Soap makers think of castile soap as a finished bar or liquid product for skin cleansing. Laundry and home cleaning makers use the same castile soap as a concentrated cleaning base — diluted into all-purpose sprays, dish soap, and floor cleaners. One ingredient, two very different product categories, and different dilution and pH rules for each.
Business Glossary vs. Wholesale Glossary — what's the difference?
The Candle & Soap Business Glossary covers the maker-facing commercial vocabulary: pricing your products, choosing sales channels, branding, legal basics, shipping, and the makesy ecosystem. The Wholesale & Business Glossary goes deeper into the operational and strategic layer: sourcing, manufacturing models, pricing strategy for scale, retail buyer vocabulary, operations, finance, and legal compliance for growing brands. Start with the Business Glossary and graduate to Wholesale as your volume grows.
A lot of the confusion people hit early in making comes down to vocabulary. Not knowing what a term means — or misunderstanding it — leads to wasted materials, frustrating results, and products that don't perform the way they should. We built this glossary to remove that barrier. Every definition here is written with the practical meaning in mind: what you need to know when you're standing at a workbench deciding what to do next, not what you'd find in a chemistry textbook.
