14.5-Inch Silver Base Lava Lamp with Purple Wax in Blue Liquid - 2118

My daughter decided that she wanted a lava lamp for her 9th birthday - she saw that one of her classmates has one while they were having a "Zoom" school-day class (Coronavirus social distancing times!) and thought it was super cool. I picked this one based on the reviews and the price, and she loves pink and purple so the colors were perfect. It was packaged well, arrived intact, and works great! Yes, it does take a WHILE to get that lava going, but that's what happens with any lava lamp - the lava is wax and has to heat up to a "liquid" state, and it's just a small incandescent bulb in the base of the lamp that provides that heat, so of course it doesn't start up right away. But once it gets going... wow. When I was a super cool teen in the early 90s, groovy 60s and 70s stuff came back into pop-culture popularity, and I sooooo wanted a lava lamp but never got one (no one-click online shopping back in 1993! :) ) so now I sit with my kiddo and watch hers and oooh and aaahhhh over how cool it is. Maybe I'll just have to order one for myself!!! So: great price, great product, LOTS of fun!!

Two points: 1) In contrast to the 1-star reviews, this product works. Those who said the lava lamp doesn't work / doesn't get hot enough, etc, I just want to point out that, firstly, this product, and the bulb, are the same regardless of who buys it. Secondly, when I first turned it on, it seemed as though nothing was happening after 90 minutes or so, and I started 'freaking out' that omg I got one of the defective lava lamps. What I didn't bother noticing initially is that there's a metal coil inside the wax that needs to sit horizontally and transversely along the bottom, just above the bulb. If your wax is lopsided and you notice the coil (which you'll be able to see if you hold the glass bottle at different angles) is angled any way that is not completely flat with your desk, move the bottle around and reposition it. After I did this it worked just fine. Took about 2.5-3 hours on the first go before it started working. 2) The blue-orange contrast isn't as striking as the photos made it out to believe at first. I was doing homework in a brightly lit room at the time. Occasionally the orange wax at the bottom, just above the light, can get really bright, but as soon as it rises, it becomes a dark orange-black. This isn't a big deal, but just pointing it out because the appearance of the working product is OK, but not remotely close to 'oh wow, that's such a cool and gorgeous lamp.' Then I turned the lights low/off and the color contrast was more pronounced. I know this sounds obvious/dumb, but if you want it to look nice, it should be in low light. Otherwise the appearance is average. Overall I consider it a good purchase.

If you're looking for a Lava lamp, but are afraid of wasting money on it due to the reviews, PLEASE keep reading! -This product is definitely worth a purchase!‐ I was extremely hesitant to buy online because of all the reviews stating that the lamp was defective in some way (broken bulb/glass, coil not working etc) but what made me want to try was another review expressing how to troubleshoot with the lamp in the case of it not doing what was expected out of it immediately. I really appreciate that reviewer and I hope this review will be worth the read for others who are on the fence but really want one. I received the package in fine condition, read the start up instructions (please read them!), and set up my lamp with no issues! Since it's cold where I live, I had to let the bottle warm to my bedrooms ambient temperature before turning on the lamp The lava process needs patience in order for it to work. The rest of the checklist was fine (coil was nestled in the right spot, bottle was not cloudy, bulb was packaged well and was intact.) After I turned on the lamp, it took about 5 hours for the wax to start "towering", and after a day, it was working perfectly. Now this is where ambient temperatures come into play for me. I have a bedroom that is either too warm or too cold. The instructions state that the lamp works best in a certain temperature range, that way the bottle can stay warm enough throughout the day to keep the wax melted as it flows to the top. I had turned my lamp off for 2 days when my area had a cold front move in, so my room got colder. The lava never settled to the bottom fully, so it was left in a "stalagmite" or lumpy shape for those 2 days because it didn't cool slow enough. I ran it for 3 days after, on and off like the instructions say to do, but it never melted the wax fully. I researched what I could do to fix it but since my coil was where it should be, I wasn't finding help online. (Last pic is an example of this problem.) I decided to take a risk and heat some water to a simmer (almost boiling), and poured the water into a seperate large container so I could gently melt the wax and warm the bottle without breaking the glass. It worked well enough, and it seems that the lava is working perfectly now! TL:DR - take the plunge and buy this lamp. If the product is not working as intended, customer service is here to troubleshoot or even replace your lamp (I didn't need to contact though) and if you follow the instructions as best you can, this lamp works just fine! Make sure to keep your room at a good temp and you shouldn't have the same issue as me. If you do, just heat the bottle back up in some hot water (like giving it a "bath" 😅) and it should solve the issue! Thanks for reading!

When this lamp first arrived, it was almost unusable. The liquid was so cloudy that the wax inside was practically invisible, and repeated heating cycles (the manufacturer’s suggested fix) did very little to help. It was clear to me that the problem stemmed from poor storage and handling, likely exposure to too much heat before shipping, which can ruin these types of lamps. Out of the box, I would have returned it had I not been comfortable making repairs myself. Filtering the liquid cleared things immediately, transforming the lamp from a cloudy mess into a handsome piece. The wax color is not as pictured, but it has a dynamic beauty of its own: a pinkish-purple glow near the base, shifting to a deeper purple on top, with blue-violet reflections along the undersides of the moving wax. Meanwhile, the fluid appears more teal when illuminated than the stock photos suggest. The result is striking, just different than advertised. Performance is mixed. The lamp tends to run hot, which causes the wax to fragment into smaller bubbles that hover near the top instead of flowing gracefully. Using a dimmer to manage heat output helps, but in my opinion this is a workaround for an issue that should not exist. My four-star rating reflects the lamp as it currently sits on my desk: attractive, functional, and enjoyable once repaired. If I were judging it solely on how it arrived, or assuming I lacked the know-how to fix it, my rating would be much lower. Buyers without the willingness or ability to troubleshoot should keep this in mind.

I remember buying a lava lamp, actually receiving it as a gift in high school back in the very early 2000s. It was beautiful, I ran it nonstop and I only threw it away because the base got bent. I feel like an idiot for doing it and wish I hadn’t. Apparently the company has been resold once or twice since then and every time they get resold they become more and more crappy. The current company is actually a toy company that has no idea about chemicals and how to make proper lava lamps. It certainly shows in the quality of their product. I tried purchasing more about 5 years ago and they faded very fast. Almost as though you left them sitting in the sun, pink and purple turned to brown within a month, it was so weird, and in rooms that were north facing that get very little light I don’t understand how that could have happened. I decided to try again and ordered them again here on Amazon. This is my experience with these current ones made by Schylling: I purchased a couple other colors, they aren’t perfect but they’re okay. I had issues with cloudiness, but it was very little and the more I used them the less the cloudiness was visible so I’m glad for that. For some reason this one, (I purchased the blue liquid with purple wax.) was a chore to get one that I could actually use. I purchased 2 at first, one for my daughter and one for me. Hers was perfect, mine looked slightly empty. It was about an inch lower than hers was. It was also cloudy but I decided I’d try it out anyhow and see if I could get the cloudiness to subside because it worked with the other colors. I set it up and let it run for about 4 or 5 hours. It looked like it was losing liquid even though it wasn’t clearly leaking anywhere. Well I took the bottle out of the base and the light bulb exploded. The whole base was full of the blue liquid. We couldn’t see any leak at all on the bottle, it didn’t even feel wet. I had to wait until the next day when it was bright and sunny out to take it outside and see a hairline crack in the bottle. I was kind of surprised by this since the shipping box, it’s own box, and all packaging was in perfect condition. It must have been a defect during manufacturing since it was right along it’s own seam. What is odd is that it didn’t leak during shipment but perhaps the heating of it was what really made the difference. Could have been very dangerous. I was hassled by Amazon about the return and they requested several photos and I had to speak with like 3 people to get the refund. Kind of ridiculous. (I am including some of the pictures of this one.) After that fiasco, knowing that manufacturing defects happen and it doesn’t always deem the product to be complete crap, I ordered another one. This one was so cloudy you couldn’t barely see the wax at all while it was running. (I am including pictures of this.) I tried the “cycling” they suggest on the website, I joined groups and forums, tried everything, no good. Returned that and bought another one, same thing. At this point I’m aggravated and couldn’t understand why the one my daughter has is perfect. You can see white film on the wax on the bad ones, the good ones still have it but they have less. If you get one and your liquid is cloudy, it’s pretty likely it’s going to stay that way unless it’s only a little bit. If you have one that is VERY cloudy you are pretty much guaranteed to have to send it back, it will never be fixed. I decided to give it one last try because I wanted this color so badly. Thankfully I finally received a good one. Doesn’t appear cloudy at all and when runny it doesn’t have any issues. What a nightmare though. Pretty bad that I had to order so many just to get 2 good ones. I haven’t done enough research yet but basically if you want a GOOD lava lamp buy a vintage one, anything made in the early 2000s or older. Don’t quote me on this year but I think I read in the groups that 2003 was when they were sold to some factory in China and quality took a dive. They’ve since been sold again like I said earlier. There is also a company called Mathmos but they are also going downhill and only in the UK or something so you have to buy them online and spend quite a bit just to get one. Also I’d like to reiterate do not settle for a crappy one. If it’s cloudy or defective SEND IT BACK. It’s free to return it if it’s defective. Don’t allow this company to keep making crap products. Maybe if they realize they’re getting so many returns they need to fix their low quality product or sell to a company that will so people can still buy and enjoy lava lamps.

Bought this for a funky fun mood in our office loft. It's great! The colors (purple liquid, yellow wax) were something I had to think about but my choice was spot on for the look I wanted. Nothing garish or odd. Rather, a beautiful sunset - in terms of colors...red, orange, purple, gold. I followed the instructions and the item did need additional time to begin fully moving. I can imagine impatient folks trying to shake it to speed things up - bad move - as that would tend to cloud your liquid. There is a circular metal coil that is unseen when the was fully melts. You could see mine in the was blob as it began to melt. It then settled, unseen, into the bottom section where it remains now. It took 10 hours one day and another 3 the next for the complete was melt and free flowing movement to begin. Worth the wait. Ten hours is the maximum on-time per day and again, I followed all directions. You won't be sorry if you try this lamp!

You know, I've gotten 4 lava lamps from here over the past 11 months. 1st one, this particular one, is and will be awesome! Works perfectly, looks perfect, you get it, the thing is perfect! 2nd, and 4th lamps are pure shit, threw one in the garbage that's how pure the turd is. Turd Uber alles one could say, I am that one. First was just a cloudy mess no matter what I did short of opening it. The 4th ordered another cloudy POS, less cloudy, and I could see the improvements to the lamp frame, etc, yet the internals still fell short. Lastly is the 3rd one I bought, was slightly cloudy with one solid chunk of wax, but still pretty when she cleared up. What am I trying to say in this review? Just that it's a crapshoot buying one online apparently, mine were packed right, unopened, yet still sucked.

This is a more modern lava lamp that isn't going to burn the crap out of you if you touch it. Unfortunately that means that for it to work, the room you have it in needs to be of a higher temperature. I'd say around 68-70 degrees this lava lamp will work properly. Anything below that, it might not bubble around. Also when I received it the internal coil was upside down. I did a few flips to get it over and onto the bottom. If this coil isn't on the bottom and coming in contact with the light bulb, the lava lamp isn't going to work. The waxy stuff isn't going to melt. ERMERGERD am I right?! When I received this lava lamp it was also cloudy. But I was like whatever, I paid a pretty low price for it and it looked decent otherwise. It took a long time for it to warm . I'd say like 4ish hours. But since I've been running it daily, it bubbles within an hour and a half depending on the temperature of the room and the cloudiness went away after about 6 uses. I think they just need to be broken in and you need to be patient with it. I did take a gamble buying this lamp because of the reviews but now I've just realized a lot of people dunno how a lava lamp works. Or they are hoping for the old version that might set your house on fire cuz it's so f..ing hot.