Yeah, they are light properties, but they are also material properties.

First you call glMaterial to set the properties,
and OpenGL will then take them into account in the rendering of the object.

in materials you have:

GL_AMBIENT, GL_DIFFUSE, GL_SPECULAR
these are the ambient (shadow area) diffuse, and specular(highlight) reflection color.

GL_EMISSION sets the color of the "glow"

GL_SHININESS controls the specular exponent (used to focus the "hightlight")