New Liquid in lava lamp

[Jimmy]

I finally poped the top off my cloudy red lamp and drained all the liquid out of it. I went for the Distilled water with a couple drops of detergent and some Epsom salt. It is flowing but not in the way I want it. The flow is really small and stringy. There are also a bunch of balls of lava on the bottom of the lamp. Did I put too much of something in? And yes i did slowly add the Magnesium Sulfate slowly until it started to flow.

[Little L]

In my experience, usually too much surfactant will make the flow more stringy. I would stay away from using detergent, as I have found that it tends to be too harsh on the wax. I would try maybe clear baby shampoo, or meguiars car wash, the clear stuff. However, if you want to stick to the detergent, i would add a drop or 2 in a 50ml solution of water or so and add that to the lamp, as opposed to straight detergent. Good luck!