I don’t think the candle company wants to give out too much info so any help you could give would be very much appreciated as you seem to know everything about dyes.

This is a difficult question, because there are hundreds of different solvent dyes, and there is no way to narrow down which ones you have there.

The first thing to know is that substances that are soluble in wax are not soluble in water. Think about the oil and vinegar in a salad dressing, how they never mix together for long, no matter how you shake them. Vinegar is mostly water. If you add a drop of liquid food coloring to a mixture of oil and water, and shake it, the water (or vinegar) will be colored, but the oil will be unchanged. If you get an oil-soluble dye, instead, such as annatto seeds, their color will go into the oil part of the mixture, leaving the water or vinegar unchanged. As a general rule, a dye can either be soluble in oils, waxes, and fats, OR it can be soluble in water. You cannot use the same dye in water that you use in wax.

The word used to describe things that can be dissolve in water is hydrophilic, which means "water loving". The word used for things that can be dissolved in oil or wax is hydrophobic, which means "water hating". Solvent dyes can be described as hydrophobic dyes.

"Wax soluble batik dyes" is not a meaningful phrase to me. The dye is either going to be soluble in wax, and thus useful for candles, or it is going to be soluble in water, and thus usable for genuine batik. Maybe, just possibly, there might be some process somewhere that uses wax to apply oil-soluble dyes to fabric, but if so, I have never heard of it and cannot tell you about it. None of the dyes described on my web site, such as Procion MX dyes or acid dyes, are suitable for use in coloring wax for candles, as they are all hydrophilic substances which will dissolve in water, but not in wax. Procion MX and similar dyes that we use for batik are not soluble in wax.

The way the wax in batik works is by repelling dye that is dissolved in water. We use colorless wax for this purpose. We immerse the fabric in a water plus water-soluble dye dyebath, then remove it from the dyebath, rinse out and dry, then apply more wax to the fabric. Wherever wax has been applied, no more color goes. We never use wax-soluble dyes in batik, only water-soluble dyes.

Here is a link to a dye manufacturer's list of solvent dyes, just to show you how impossible it will be to get the correct name for the exact dye in the candles your son used. There are so many different solvent dyes that we cannot even guess which ones may have been used in your candles. Candles can also be dyed with insoluble pigments, but if there is any meaning to what the candle seller told you, your candles are colored with dyes, not pigments.

Different candles may burn at different speeds for a reason other than the specific dye. A candle that is a lighter color might have less dye added to the candle recipe and therefore contain a higher proportion of wax in the recipe. 

Here is a more official explanation, quoted from the April 26, 2007 online issue of the newspaper "USA Today" :

Wax is the most important ingredient that makes a candle burn faster. Soft wax has a higher oil content and lower melt temperature; therefore, it burns faster. Typically, candles in jars have soft wax, and pillar candles have hard wax. The longest burning candles are pillar candles made of a blend of beeswax and paraffin.

Why would one color of candle have a different thickness of wick than another? Probably just chance. All of the candles of one color will be made in one batch, while the candles of another color will be prepared separately, in another batch. Perhaps the wicks just happened to be a little thicker, or thinner, the day the yellow candles were made.

Here is a link to a completely different explanation, claiming that darker colors might burn faster because the color black absorbs more light energy. I am not convinced that the result of color color absorption would be great enough to be measurable, however. I favor the wick hypothesis as the best guess at an explanation for why some candles burn faster than others.

GenWax.com has a thoughtfully answered FAQ section which says that the wick's capacity will overcome any effects of colors or scents. You will want to look at their answers.


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