Off Brand Chinese Lamps

Nova

The Nova is an excellent example of a lamp that can compete with the aesthetics of name brand lamps. They do however fall short when it comes to the quality of the formula. These came only in glitter variants and the purple lava pictures is a refill, but whoever designed these seems to have put some thought into the lamp design. It emulates older Lava Lite lamps by including pinholes. It also has a capacity of close to 32oz which isn’t common with off brand lamps. That makes it a good candidate for refills once the glitter formula goes bad which it often does. I have seen these come with clear liquid and silver glitter as well as blue liquid with silver glitter. The glitter usually loses its shine and the liquid clouds with use. Despite that it still makes for a fantastic lamp to collect.

Excalibur

The Excalibur is another top tier off brand lamp. It features a globe with a massive capacity of around 4.5L. Some globes use jeroboam or “double magnum” wine bottles. Others come with a custom globe with a short neck. The short neck bottles do not seem to be properly tempered and often crack on the bottom. If you have ran into this problem all hope is not lost. Replacement bottles are available from Goolamp here.

They came in handful of variations. You can see in the picture below the differences in globes. Also note the two varieties of the caps. Some have suns other have moons. The finish also came in a brushed aluminum and painted silver variant. These variants seem to be linked together. Excaliburs with suns come with long neck globes, a brushed aluminum finish, a slightly tapered base, and a different sloped bottom. Excaliburs with moons came with short neck globes, a pained finish, and a bottom with a harder edge.

These most commonly came with lava formula with purple liquid and yellow wax or blue liquid and yellow wax. There were also commonly available with blue or yellow liquid and silver glitter. Unfortunately with most of these off brand lamps the formulas don’t typically hold up, but they do make excellent lamps once refilled with better formula.

A Russian company has also branded and started selling Excaliburs under their own brand “Colosssus” many years after these stopped showing up in store shelves showing that it may be possible to revive many of these off brand lamps if the original manufacturer can be found. Good luck

Pyramids

Pyramids are a personal favorite of mine. They feature a unique 3 sided design that creates a fun house mirror effect when looked at from certain angles. I know that these were sold at Kohl’s in the USA, but I’m not sure if they were ever sold anywhere else. They came in two different sizes. The small ones are just scaled down versions of the larger ones. I’ve only seen them come in black and silver, but like many of these Chinese made lamps it is possible that they came in more colors.

Small

The larger pyramids are where things get interesting. They feature a steel wire that runs from the base to the cap. It is only decorative and does not add any structural integrity to the lamp. They came in several colors including silver, transparent yellow, transparent pink, and transparent blue. The globes they use frequently have issues with wax sticking to them even if you refill them with formulas from other lamps. I have personally refilled these with Magma Tower Gookits and 1990’s era Lava Lite formula and both have had issues with sticking. Interestingly you can often find these globes filled with pickled vegetables at craft stores which again is an attribute of the manufacturers in China finding ways to reuse components of the lamp.

Large

Fisura

Not a lot is known about the Fisura lamp. The “Fisura” brand is used for a lot of other lava lamps previously released under other brand names, but it’s most notable lamp is this one. It showed up around the year 2020 in Europe. It uses a 20oz globe that is the same globe Lava Lite lava lamps use. It also uses the same wrapping process as modern lava lamps. This likely means that these are made in the same factory and are unofficial knockoffs. These have a very cool design and it’s a shame they aren’t officially adopted as an official product.

Student Lounge Concave

These were also sold over and over again under various different names. They are fairly common lamps with typical short lived formula that don’t hold up to repeated use, but they can be refilled and recapped with a standard bottle cap.

Oozy Glo / Groovetube

Oozy Glo lamps are interesting for a couple of reasons. One is the design isn’t bad. The shape is appealing, but the globe is really small which limits the quality of the flow. The globes in these are used over and over again in so many other models it is one of the most common off brand lamps you will come across. Because of this they are fairly cheap to acquire.

They come in so many variations it’s hard to even list them all. Silver, chrome, black, patterns, you name it. Oozy Glo’s have it all. They have been sold under many different names as well with Oozy Glo and Groove Tube being the most common.

What I think of most though when I see these lamps is that they were the pale horse when it comes to lava lamps being made in the USA. In the early 2000’s resellers were pressuring Lava Lite to lower their prices and threatening to bring in off brand lamps to replace Lava Lite’s products. At stores like Wal-Mart and Spencer’s you would see a quality USA made product next to cheap Chinese knockoffs that were vastly inferior, but for a third of the cost. This is the lamp they brought in.

Link’d

Link’d lamps are interesting in that they feature 2 Oozy Glo globes. They were sold with lava and glitter variants.

Bong

Another lamp that uses the Oozy Glo globe. Shaped like a bong, but don’t hit this dank lamp. That’s not bong water you’re drinking, it’s toxic chemicals!

Hot Rock

Hot Rocks are another lamp I find interesting for more reasons than the lamp itself. They are another very common lamp. The globes are also used for many other lamps as well. They are another lamp brought in to drive Lava Lite out of business in the early 2000’s.

Tiki

Tiki lamps come in a couple of base variations. These use the same globe as the Hot Rock.

Geyser Lamp

Technically the Geyser lamp is considered a boiler lamp, but this is my website and I like them so I am adding what may possibly be the only commercially available boiler lamp sold in the USA. This lamp features a boiler inside a glitter globe. These are frequently damaged during shipping so it is hard to get one that does not leak or completely destroyed during shipping. They were available from Spencer’s Gifts, Kohl’s, and even Walgreens in the early 2000’s.

These come in 2 variants that use the same base. One has a tapered look with the bottom being wider and the other kind of resembles a football. The glitter in these always appears to be silver in clear liquid and the bubbling liquid has been seen in red, green, purple, and blue. Some are semi transparent while others are made opaque through the use of mica powder to give it a metallic look.

Tower Lamp

This lamp has come in a couple of varieties with the most common having a short base and the other being a much taller base. Both use the same slender glass tube. These are sealed at the top by melting the glass and not with a traditional bottle cap meaning it is not possible to refill these without significant effort and risk.

Wavy

These Wavy lamps are also very common and can be found at a very cheap price. They feature a square tube with waves that is used in a handful of other similar variants.

Double Wavy

An upgraded Wavy lamp, the Double Wavy is the same thing, but twice as good! These often come with a lava bottle and glitter bottle combo.

Knockoff Fluidium

These started being introduced somewhere around 2021. They are a smaller version of the Mathmos Fluidium and come in many different colors. One company even branded them as the “Bib Blob” blob lamp.

Bullet

The Bullet lamp was sold under the brand Pliable Arts. These lamps are shaped like a missile or a bullet.

Crayon

Another Groove Tube variant. Crayon’s mimic the iconic Crayola appearance. They also have many variations with some having slopes bases, stepped bases, and curved bases.

Molten Lamp

These have appeared under several different names. “Molten”, “Curvy”, and “Egg Shaped lamp” are some of the most common names given to these. They come in several variations that have different bases, but they all have the same globe.

Bowling Pins

Similar to the Curvy lamp, but the bottles are a bit different. These come on a special base with 3 spots to place the bottles. Perhaps these were meant to be given at bowling alleys as prizes?

Bargain bin lamps

I don’t really have a lot to say about these. They are common small lamps that usually have bad formula in them and are some of the cheapest lamps you can find both in regards to price and quality. By far the most common lamp to find.

Resin Sculpted Lamps

There have been many different lamps that come with resin sculpted bases. Most of these use Hot Rock style bottles. Too many to individually track down and name so I’ll place them all here.

Ocean theme

Dragon theme

Christmas theme

Alien theme

Dinosaur theme