Orange Tinted White Wax??

[Jamie]

I found a midnight series at a goodwill last night, cap code 03 (blue liquid, white wax). Nice non cloudy liquid, scratch free glass, missing a top cone, all for $3...

I got it home and started it up. It ran just fine but the wierd thing is, when the lava is at the bottom, it looks orange. The actual wax isnt tinted orange because when it rises to the top it becomes the perfect white, but once it sinks to the bottom it appears orange again. This isnt because of the light bulb used as you can see in the pictures, when I hold the globe up and look at it from underneath, you can see the orange tint. The glass itself isnt tinted either though so I am at a loss as to what is causing this, or how to remedy it. Any suggestions or ideas? When I held the globe up this morning, the wax appeard more milky and possibly less orange, but that could have been my early morning eyes playing tricks on me...

 

[Keith]

This is normal especially for older globes that have been used often.  Just as colored wax can fade with time, white wax will develop an off white color.  There are no fixes for this to my knowledge.  I have some like this that the blue has faded to clear and when they run the wax looks pale yellow.  So if it runs fine just sit back and enjoy! ;)

[Jamie]

haha ok!
im just baffled as to why it looks so fire-orange when its at the bottom near the light and so white and perfect when its in the middle and top of the globe.

[Keith]

I would give you the exact scientific reason it looks that way but it would take too long, plus I DON'T KNOW the reason! lol

Like I said I have some like this but when I bought them I didn't know about cap codes so I thought they were various shades of yellow.

[Erin]

My guess would be that when it's at the bottom, it's more concentrated, so the orange hue looks more pronounced. When it's up and flowing, it's more encased in blue liquid that may mask some of the orange tint, plus there's less of it to "see" when it's flowing up and down the globe. 

Hope that makes sense. I don't think I did a good job of explaining it.

But yes, it's normal for white wax to go yellow/brown-ish over the years. Never really seen one go orange though! 

Jamie said:

haha ok!
im just baffled as to why it looks so fire-orange when its at the bottom near the light and so white and perfect when its in the middle and top of the globe.

[Samantha Gregory]

THat's cool looking

[Jeff]

One of my older lamps, a blue/white one just like this looks exactly the same.  Figured it was due to the lamp's age. 

[Kirk]

What Keith said -- especially the "enjoy!" part!  I'm crazy about lava lamps, aren't you?   I'm amazed at how well so many of these older ones still flow, and I love finding the $3 Goodwill bargain, too!

Keith said:

This is normal especially for older globes that have been used often.  Just as colored wax can fade with time, white wax will develop an off white color.  There are no fixes for this to my knowledge.  I have some like this that the blue has faded to clear and when they run the wax looks pale yellow.  So if it runs fine just sit back and enjoy! ;)

[Samantha Gregory]

My blue/yellow century's wax it's turning orange so I'm not running it for a while