Lava® Brand and other brand Lamps

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The coolest thing about lava lamps, of course, is that they produce distinct amorphous blobs that rise and fall in the lamp's "globe" on their own. To produce this effect, you need to pick your two insoluble compounds very carefully. In our oil and water jar, the water ends up on the bottom because it has a much higher density than oil. Simply put, a liquid with a higher density pushes a lower-density liquid upward (for more on this, check out How Helium Balloons Work).

To get blobs that will float around, you need two substances that are very similar in density. Then you need to be able to change the density of one of the compounds so that sometimes it is lighter than the other compound (and so floats to the top) and sometimes it is heavier (so that it sinks to the bottom). By having compounds that have similar densities, the blobs can easily switch between rising and sinking.