Candles are colored either throughout or they sometimes consist of a white body that is covered with a colored layer of paraffine wax. According to the material from which candles are made (stearine, paraffine, or ozokerite), the process of coloring varies.

Stearine, owing to its acid character, dissolves the coal-tar colors much more readily than do the perfectly neutral paraffine and ozokerite waxes. For coloring stearine the necessary quantity of the color is added to the melted mass and well stirred in; if the solution effected happens to be incomplete, a small addition of alcohol will prove an effective remedy. It is also an advantage to dissolve the colors previously in alcohol and add the concentrated solution to the melted stearine. The alcohol soon evaporates, and has no injurious effect on the quality of the stearine.

For a number of years there have been on the market so-called " fat colors," formed by making concentrated solutions of the color, and also special preparations of the colors in stearine. They are more easily applied, and are, therefore, preferred to the powdered aniline colors, which are apt to cause trouble by being accidentally distributed in soluble particles, where they are not wanted. Since paraffine and ozokerite dissolve comparatively little, they will not become colored, and so must be colored indirectly. One way is to dissolve the color in oleic acid or in stearine acid and add the solution to the wax to be colored. Turpentine may be employed for the same purpose. Concerning the colors suitable for candles, there are the eosine colors previously mentioned, and also chroline yellow, auramine, taniline blue, tartrazine, brilliant green, etc. The latter, however, bleaches so rapidly that it can hardly be recommended. An interesting phenomenon is the change some colors undergo in a warm temperature; for instance, some blues turn red at a moderate degree of heat (120° F.) and return to blue only when completely cooled off; this will be noticed while the candle mixture is being melted previous to molding into candles.