About
My name is Kirk. While I grew up in the 1970s, I never owned a lava lamp. It wasn't until 2012 that I acquired my first lava lamp at a Christmas gift exchange. The lamp didn't flow well, so I explored the options for fixing it. With the help of the collecting community, I successfully refurbished the lamp. I have been collecting vintage and modern motion lamps ever since.
Vintage Glitter Lamps
In the 1960s and 70s, glitter lamps were first produced commercially.
Vintage fast glitter lamps were filled with solvent-based hydrocarbon liquids like perchloroethylene, trichloroethylene and trichlorotrifluoroethane that all produced very fast-flowing and flashy glitter.
From the UK, Crestworth made Living Jewels and 'Fast' Glitterlites, while Hunter made the Sata-Lite. From the US, Lava Simplex and Lava Lite made GemLites and Wizards, while Fantasia made Cosmic Windows and Glitter Graphics. Many more vintage fast glitter lamps were made in Italy, Germany, France, USSR, Denmark, China and Taiwan.
Today, these solvent-based lamps are no longer manufactured due to the toxicity of the liquids, and are now mostly found in private collections.
While the flashy, quick flowing glitter is hard to ignore, I also discovered the beauty in slow-flowing glitters. Florence Art, Lava Lite, Crestworth, and Mastercrafters all filled glass globes with silver glitter flakes and small, dust-like glitter, that I like to call Stardust.
The glitter flowed slowly and lacked the flashiness of the fast flowing glitters, but the colors and the lamp and clock designs were beautiful in their own right. Unlike the fast glitter liquid of that time, the slow glitter liquid was not solvent-based and was much less toxic.
To repair my own lamps, I experimented with both fast and slow glitter liquid. Over several years, I created and tested the glitter and liquids you see for sale today from Stardust Lamps.
The Stardust Lamps fast glitter liquid is not solvent-based and is much less toxic than the liquid found in the vintage lamps. It's safer while still producing plenty of flash in a quick-flowing liquid.
The slow glitter liquid looks exactly like that found in most vintage slow glitter lamps.
Please review the pictures and videos, and give these modern glitter products a try!