If you love pop culture as much as we do at Nutcase, you can’t help but have a lava lamp-inspired helmet in your lineup!

Remember the lava lamp? It’s a cultural icon with a rich history.

LavaLamps

photo by Dean Hochman via flickr.

Originally a Brit named Edward Craven Walker designed the groovy lamp after seeing something bobbing and sinking as it cooked while he sat in a pub in 1963.

Determined to re-create the hypnotic moving blobs in liquid, he went home and went to work. Using a light bulb as the heat source, Walker used an old Orange Squash bottle to mix two insoluble liquids, one water based and the other wax based. The light bulb’s heat caused the otherwise floating wax to sink and then surface, endlessly.

Coloring the watery liquid and the waxy blobs made for a mesmerizing visual experience, and Walker’s company started manufacturing “Astro Lamps” by the millions.

In 1965 he sold U.S. manufacturing rights to a company called Lava Lite, and thus the lamp we know today made its way into bazillions of college dorm rooms. Like etchings and LP records, lava lamps have an aura of happy nostalgia.

Rather than a reliable light source, the lava lamp is really a mood setter.

And that’s what we tried to achieve with the Lava Lamp helmet – a lifting of mood any old day of the week.

Of course, our Lava Lamp helmet is a re-interpretation of the classic, using a surprising palette of curving rainbow stripes and wavering silver lines. Look closely and you’ll see some lava lamp bubbles bobbing up the sides and over the top of the helmet. The effect is just psychedelic enough for everyday.

lava lamp helmet

lead image (above) and captioned image here by @yazzros on Instagram

As with our other re-interpretations of classic pop culture themes, we try to remind people of familiar forms and great graphics that they know from other media and give them a characteristic Nutcase twist.

Enjoy!