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Cool Cloud Lamp!

Make a very neat lava-like lamp for less than $10 in parts. Uses only soap and water. No chemicals, easy, fun, and the results are incredibly neat!

I added some cheap plastic eyeballs and suspended them from the lid with thread to make an Eerie Halloween Display!

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Step 1Supplies You'll Need

$Supplies You\$

The main things you'll need are a 6" piece of THICK PVC pipe, a 15-25 watt bulb (you can go as high as 40, but the base can get pretty hot at 40), and "pearlized" liquid handsoap that contains glycol stearate or glycol distearate (should be listed on the ingredients of the bottle). Avoid anything that has moisturizers or additives like aloe, etc. Click on the pictures for a full list of the supplies I used.

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167 comments

1-40 of 167

Mar 28, 2012. 1:44 AMThingArthur says:

I once mixed some bronze powder with white spirit and got good 'clouds',
put between 2 sheets of glass, I could leave a 'hand print' in the cloud,
was going to add a lamp to warm up one end to make a 'hurricane'...
and hang it on the wall
might try again with some thrown out double glazing...

Mar 24, 2012. 5:43 PM

ashbegash says:

Awesome!! Love it!

Jul 8, 2011. 2:55 AMiok says:

haha, that so awesome bro
when u put that eyes..cool
nice job

Jun 18, 2011. 11:05 AMShadow Of Intent says:

I'd love to see something like this with toy arms and legs in as a replica of Sid's lava la mp in Toy Story XD

Apr 18, 2011. 8:58 PMnmvb says:

lots of shampoos have glycol stearate or distearate in them.

Jan 8, 2008. 11:16 AMshortblock says:

Hey what brand of soap did you use.

Nov 3, 2009. 2:37 PMTOMCRADICK says:

I CAN,T FIND LIQUID SOAP WITH GLYCOL STERATE OR GLYCOL WITH DISTERATE. PLEASE LET ME KNOW BRAND AND WHERE TO BUY. EVERYTHING ELSE IS FINISHED. TOM

Dec 20, 2010. 7:36 AMknotherexx says:

cvs brand handsoap, softsoap, mine is the "milk and honey" version. i'm about to make the lamp so i'll let you know if it doesnt work....

Nov 3, 2010. 2:18 PM

fidgety2 says:

how would glycerol work as a substitute for the soap just asking

Jun 26, 2010. 9:42 AMpigsrock says:

can you see the clouds with out the light?

Nov 14, 2009. 4:57 PMtubanator-2.0 says:

this is really awesome especially because im using this in a old coke bottle and putting a nuka cola clear lablel on it. : )

Oct 4, 2007. 1:17 PMandyellison says:

So whats the effect of adding more soap? or what about colored soap (ie soap with food coloring in it)?

Oct 4, 2007. 5:30 PMbabblin5 (author) says:

More soap = thicker clouds. Not sure about colored soap, but I think the ratio to make any difference would be at least 25% soap, which would ruin the effect 8(

Nov 3, 2009. 4:11 PMTOMCRADICK says:

I NEED THE SOAP, NAME AND WERE I CAN BUY IT. THANKS

Oct 5, 2007. 1:59 AMbabblin5 (author) says:

But food coloring might work fine... haven't tried that as I usually just "paint" the bottoms of the jars with permanent markers of different colors. You can get a really nice sunset effect by coloring one half of the bottom yellow, and the other half red. =D

Dec 22, 2008. 4:06 PMspock155 says:

To tell you the truth, it took me forever to find soap with glycol distearate... lol...

Nov 3, 2009. 3:03 PMTOMCRADICK says:

WHERE DID YOU FIND IT AND WHAT BRAND

Oct 8, 2009. 5:02 AMDasBus says:

This is way cool! You should definitely enter it in the upcoming Halloween instructable contest!

Feb 24, 2009. 6:24 PMJORDAN180592 says:

I love it......i made more than $500 dollars !!!! thank you Jordan huges from mexico!!!

Aug 31, 2009. 2:59 AMbabblin5 (author) says:

Excellent! =)

Nov 20, 2008. 9:18 PMseansippo says:

this is interesting, but im interested in the bubble effect of a lava lamp. i have been reading around about using a mixture of mineral oil and rubbing alcohol, not sure if it works yet. any idea what should be used for the more BUBBLE effect? thank you

Apr 30, 2009. 8:01 PMmacrumpton says:

According to wikipedia the original lava lamps were filled with wax and carbon tetrachloride.

May 24, 2009. 6:52 PMKill_Roy says:

carbon tetrachloride can cause many health issues when concentrated so thats probably why they stopped using it. I would be suprised if you could buy it.

Aug 27, 2009. 6:42 AMErfunden says:

I tried getting my hands on some a few years back and couldn't manage it.

Aug 27, 2009. 6:11 AMcorn fluffleberry says:

i dont know about youse guyses but i LOVE IT i am going to steampunk this

Jul 1, 2009. 11:18 AMegjr79119 says:

HEY GUYS I USED A GREEN PARTY BULB, THE ONLY THING IS A 40 WATT AND IT DOES LOOK COOL BUT IT DOESN'T SHOW THE EFFECT THAT IT SHOWS IN THE VIDEO.

Jul 1, 2009. 11:06 AMegjr79119 says:

THIS WAS A VERY COOL IDEA, THE ONLY THING I COULDN'T FIND 25 WATTS BULBS.

May 21, 2009. 8:35 AMjokerrabit says:

I seen a tut once (not sure ware) that said to mix a t-spoon of artist oil paint in a color of your choosing with 1/2 a cup of mineral oil put it in a jar about the size of a caning jar or bigger and fill the rest with distilled water. also most lava lamps I have see have a coil at the bottom that looks like it was made of aluminum wire probably to help heat the oil. BTW I did try this but I could never build a proper base to make it work though I didn't try pvc.

Feb 28, 2009. 9:29 PMblakeredfield says:

LOL, how cool. Nice nice.. +sub

Jan 11, 2009. 7:49 PMrippercito says:

the effect is amazing, and it is so-so simply! thanks for sharing m8!

Dec 21, 2008. 5:22 PMspock155 says:

Awesome.

Dec 20, 2008. 12:19 PMvoltskaterzb says:

thank you very much

Dec 20, 2008. 10:53 AMvoltskaterzb says:

can i add soap + food coloring?

Dec 10, 2008. 9:55 AMvoltskaterzb says:

coool thanks

Oct 31, 2008. 10:43 PMredstar.crvenazvezda says:

tried this a while back.... doesn't really work... it needs something moving the "clouds around. great idea though!

Nov 2, 2008. 10:53 PMCrusty_07 says:

The heat generated from the light bulb moves the soap around in the bottle. It is basic science. There is no way it couldn't work and the video in the instructable shows it working just fine. A great instructable.

Nov 8, 2008. 11:51 PMredstar.crvenazvezda says:

maybe i didn't use a hot enough bulb... mine did kinda work it was just epic slow lol

Dec 24, 2007. 10:17 AMSTi 33W says:

Here is mine. I made it as a present for my gf. I used an actual lamp as my base (with some modification) and a 25W bulb. I painted the base of the jar blue with a sharpie. The heart in the middle is just a blue coat hanger. I'm not sure if I have the mixture right, or if I have a strong enough bulb. I've had it on for almost 8 hours and no problems. I think 25W is as high as I will go. Mostly because the base has rice paper windows. Excellent Instructable. I will let you know if my gf likes it ;)

Nov 5, 2008. 11:35 PMfrikkie says:

What you guys can also try is to maybe use an element of some sort to heat the bottel.And maybe make like a top cover for the bottle in which you can put in leds of diffrent colours and a decade counter circuit to control them.Then you dont need to have just an blue or red colour lamp.I think a hairdryer like the one ladies use,should have an element that might work.The only thing is to mount it securely and to control the temprature. That one can maybe do by using an timer circuit or a thyristor circuit(light dimmer principal). Any ideas email me frikkiesmit@webmail.co.za