Ask me about Lava Lite. Top 5 unanswered questions go to Lava Lite for answers

[Autumn]

As do most of my good ideas, this one came to me after waking up in the morning. As most of you know I have been talking with Dale, the CEO of Lava Lite in an attempt to bring the collecting community and Lava Lite on to the same page. I am going to be answering questions about Lava Lite today. Anything I don't know the answer to I will put on a list and the top 5 questions will be presented to Lava Lite.

Ready? Go!

~edit~

Here are the top 5 questions and answers.

The top 5 unanswered questions.

#1. Formula, formula, formula. Will the exact formula from the 90's be used? What exactly is going on, and what happened to make things so bad?

#2. Will new lamp designs be more bold? The past 10 years worth of lamp designs have been bland, can we spice it up a bit?

#3. New base finishes in 32/52oz lamps? Copper? Chrome? (Personal note: I'd love chrome)

#4. New grande colors? We want more color options

#5. This will be my question. You mentioned that small batches will be possible when production starts in the USA factory. Will it be possible to request custom lamps, as well as send in globes for refills on lamps such as the consorts and giants?

"

#1. 

This is the big question. This was our big question and our problem to solve.

The formula was not the problem. Not following the procedure is where the problems have existed. The formula is the exact formula used in the 1990's. The process of making the formula has to be followed precisely every time.The proper heating of the wax/formula to an exact temperature is a long slow process. This is followed by a slow cool down. Every time, every batch.The problems occur when heating too quickly/and or cooled too quickly. Our two key people spent weeks at a time supervising the process. We also have an independent engineer/quality person in China. This was incredibly frustrating on our end initially. It was very simple to us.  "Just follow the formula." The real issue proved to be the process was being rushed. Less Time= Less Labor. Factories can do many things to their cut costs. Not many products exist where the end user can detect any change in quality. Our product quality is totally visible. Our team communicates with our factories every night by Skype. When they aren't present they are watching the manufacturing on Skype. We watch them like a hawk. 

#2. 

You will see many new designs and products that I would consider bold. The Clearview is the first of many being released this year. The process of creating products is painstaking and costly. From concept to release takes roughly a year. Next years design work has already begun. Having a constant flow of new interesting and exciting products are critical to our success. 

Questions #3-#5 are all good questions that primarily relate to marketing and product development, now and in the future. 

New attractive products are the lifeblood of any good consumer product company. New sizes, finishes and colors are currently in the works or in development. My personal favorite size is the Grande. The Grande could be the ideal product to initially manufacture in the USA for the following reasons: Ability to be nimble to changes, smaller batch sizes, ease of adding new colors, inventory management, upscaled finishes with smaller limited quantities and reduced lead times for products to enter the market. Initially US made product will be more costly. The larger sizes are not as price sensitive as our current line. Custom lamps would be very costly and probably not feasible.

Refilling globes would be possible and would need to be further explored. I can't provide specific timing to many of LL's current projects. These are works in progress. I assure you that our very experienced team are pros at handling any challenge. There is never a dull moment at LL. 

"

[Ian]

This seems to be a little off the topic from recent replies, but I was thinking, the older lamps seemed to have an extremely different wax. I remember when I first got my Starship, the wax took about 6 to 8 runs to break in. I remember the first time, it would send up bubbles quite frequently and that would keep it going, but that slowly went away to where the wax would just undulate up and down, not really ever breaking apart. It was almost like it wasnt getting hot enough, but that was not the case. I think it just had really lazy wax. But the wax started out as being normal, flowing and breaking apart alot.The new lamps simply do not do this. They seem to start out quite calm, yet the wax is clear ish, and they slowly seem to get more solid colored and more crazy, like they are over heated when they arent. Its like the opposite of what they used to do.

I sure hope this makes sense, Im not sure if it does or not haha but this is just my thoughts on that they have either changed the formula, or they are not preparing them like they used to. And then there is the cloudiness issue, which they seem to have taken some control over, but this has already been discussed a lot.

On a further note, I sadly sold my starship at a yard sale because I felt that it did not flow right, because it would hardly ever break up, and seemed to not get hot enough. I am kicking myself today for selling it. It had pink liquid and white wax, and the base was silver. My sis had given it to me as a bday present, it was my very first lava lamp. It was one of the "mix and match" lamps from Spencers, when you could pick out the globe and base seperately, because I remember the globe was in a completely seperate box from the base and they said custom on them or something like that, to my knowledge. Anywho, I know I would pay top dollar for a USA made lava lamp, if it had great colors, flow, and was crystal clear. Basically, if they start selling lamps comparable to the 90s.