Mathmos Jet Lava Lamp - Discolouration of liquid

Hey guys - what an amazing website - completely devoted to Lava Lamps!
I have a Mathmos Jet Lava Lamp - it is white plastic casing and I got it for a present about 5 years ago. The wax is red and the liquid used to be purple but unfortunately, when the bulb ran out I left it by the window and now the liquid has turned clear. :( It still works absolutely perfectly and I'm gutted I left it so long by the window. Is there anything I can do to get the liquid back to its original state?
Thanks in advance!
Josephine

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Permalink Reply by Keith on February 11, 2009 at 1:32pm

You can add water-based food coloring, such as for cakes and frosting. A small amount goes a long long way. If you want purple, try one drop of red and one drop of blue. To test the proper amount, you can mix it in a volume of water equal to what is in the Jet. Then add that amount of COLORING ONLY to your cold lamp bottle and gentle swirl to mix, or you can let it mix with just the movement of the lava. Do not add any water other than the coloring, if you do, the lava will NOT FLOW properly. (An exception is to mix the coloring with a small amount of water to dilute it, and then add only a couple of drops of that mixture)
Checking out other discussions can help also.

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Permalink Reply by JosephinePaget on February 12, 2009 at 1:00pm

Wahey! Thank you very much for your reply! I did consider food colouring but thought I'd better check with you guys first as I had read some of the other posts and the surrounding liquid seems to be very important, and obviously you guys are the bees knees when it comes to lava lamps! I'm definitely going to try this because it will definitely look better with purple/red.
Thank you once again!