FAQs / Himalayan salt lamps
Q. What are they and what do they do?
A. They are blocks of pink salt, generally coming from Pakistan to which a cylinder-shaped cavity has been drilled, through which a small bulb can be inserted. They often come with a wooden base that has been bolted to the salt block to make the supporting bases. You can also find other models, but this is the most common.
Q. What shapes do they have?
A. Most of the time and due to how difficult it is to carve the blocks without breaking them completely, you will find them without defined shapes. However, there are also cubes, pyramids or spheres.
Q. What color are they?
A. The colors of the salt block range from white to brown through salmon pink and orange, the last color being the most predominant. The usual thing is that in the same block there are multiple shades, in veins that are distributed unevenly. Therefore, no two lamps are alike.
Q. Why do they “sweat”?
A. Everyone knows that the kitchen salt of all life weighs down, also that in winter salt is thrown on the roads when it snows or there is a risk of ice. All this is because the salt absorbs humidity a lot. Since they are made of blocks of salt, the himalayan salt lamps tend to absorb humidity, therefore, it is not that they sweat, but that they are actually capturing the humidity of the surrounding air and condensing it on its surface.
Q. It is true that they break down?
A. Not especially, that means, if you hit them with a hammer you will break them, and if you wet it you will also damage it, but that is for almost all lamps that are made out of salt or not.
Q. How much they consume?
A. Sometimes there are those who ask if they consume a lot of electricity, the answer is no, they simply consume what the light bulb you put inside consumes, which usually tends to be 25 watts.
Q. Can I put a led light in my salt lamp?
A. You can, led or low consumption, the only limitation is in the width of the cavity that has been drilled in the lamp, which tends to be small. However, keep in mind a couple of things, first, better if you put yellow light than white, and second, keep the salt lamp dry, which requires the interior bulb to be incandescent, which means, to burn. The low consumption lights, and especially the LEDs, do not burn, that is why they consume so little and would not heat the lamp.
Q. Do the bulbs fail often?
A. The bulbs, like the lamps, come from Pakistan, so they melt fast for being of low quality, also, since the bulb is enclosed in a very small space that gets quite hot, it is normal that it lasts much less than that it would last if it were lit in a more ventilated place. We recommend using oven bulbs, as they are prepared to heat up.
