I was given a mathmos lava lamp for christmas by my other half, it was the perfect gift as I have always loved lava lamps although the ones I usually chose were on the cheap side and the bulbs tended to blow if you so much as breath on them. With mathmos you dont get these problems, they are fairly durable and hard wearing so will last as long as you want them to.

I was given two different colour bottles with mine which is brilliant as depending on what mood you are in you can change the colour of the lamp accordingly, I think the colours that you can get are very adaptable to differnent peoples moods, for instance if you are feeling a bit down in the dumps you can opt to put the darker colours in, these colours include : violet/red, Blue/blue, violet/orange.
The lighter brighter colours include: blue/green, yellow/red, clear/pink, clear/turquoise.
You can also chose if you want a chrome base and top or white, I much prefur the chrome as it isn't likely to chip and scratch as much as the white may do.

There is also a nice selection of different style lamps to choose from, you have the astrobaby, which is the style I have, the astro and the telstar. They are all amazing in their own right, they come in 3 basic shapes and sizes. The astro baby being the shortest at 43cm tall, the astro is 44cm tall and the telstar which is 49cm tall, the telstar is by far the best looking lamp as it has funky rocket shaped legs and a pointed nose.

When you open the box with the lamp, base, top and botttle inside it has all the safety information which is very useful if you have never owned one before, some of the instructions are easy to follow others may not be so easy to adhere to if you have the time or the space to have it. It comes very safely packed in the box and the bottle is packed in a separate box from the rest, it comes wrapped in a bag with a piece of cardboard around the top acting as a stopper to keep it from moving around in transit.

For instance, you have to run the lamp about 4 or 5 times to get it at its best, it can take anywhere between 1-3 hours for it to warm up and then you can't have it running for more than 6 hours if you don't want to shorten the life on it. It says not to place it on a carpet or block the ventilation spaces beneath the lamp but if you have it on a hard surface then this is likely to happen.

The bottles are easily interchangeable as I have noticed, its just a case of taking one out, taking of the top and putting the new one inside the base. I have kept all of the boxes as I got 2 bottles with mine I have got the second box in which I keeep the bottle I'm not using in, that way I can easily remove and replace the bottles in a matter of seconds.

I have both the violet/red colours and the blue/green, my favorite colours have to be the blue/green as they work very well together and can keep me entertained for hours on end! They work best when the room is dark, you will get the full beauty and wonder of them like this. The only downfall of the darker *moodier* colours is that when there is no other light on in the room it can make it very very dark. The green/blue on the other hand is nice and bright, it can be a little bit dark to start with but once it gets going its very hard to take oyur eyes off of it!

I find myself staring at my lava lamp all the time when its on and warmed up, its a very relaxing thing to have and can make you loose minutes or even hours at a time ust staring at the brightly coloures liquid and wax inside those bottles.

I have mine on my bedside as its the only place to put it plug wise, the lead on it is fairly long and has an on/off switch on the wire itself. I wouldn't recommend putting these lamps up high as they aren't always the most stable.

Mathmos is a UK based company and have a factory and a studio & shop. The factory is based in Poole, Dorset, and the factory is based in Hoxton, london. They also have their own website WWW.MATHMOS.COM or you can buy them from Amazon, e-bay and places like that. I would suggest buying them direct from the maker but it all depends on how much you want to spend on them.

Prices start from (MATHMOS): £49 for the astrobaby,
£57 for the astro
£67 for the telstar
On the mathmos website you can also buy a range of new bottles at various prices. These range anywhere from £23.95.
The prices for new lamps on Amazon are prices a little bit more, so its definatly worth getting them straight from the maker, who also will do made to order lamps!! Its worth keeping a look out on the website as they are always inventing newer, more brilliant ideas!!!

These are by far the best, funkiest, brightly coloured lava lamps around at the moment! I have had had mine for only 3 months now and will be very upset when it dies!! Although I will never go back to the cheaper versions, they are still funky lamps and do serve their purpose, I think that its mathmos all the way for the future of lava lamps!