Filling an opaque fragrance lamp
My first fragrance lamp was a beautiful black ceramic Lampe Berger that we picked up while vacationing in Galveston about seven years ago. At the time we were living in an old Craftsman-style bungalow and the lamp went perfectly with the styling of the house, with simple Mission-inspired lines. I loved that house, and the lamp will always remind me of the happy times we spent there. Since it was opaque, I wanted to find a way to efficiently and easily keep from overfilling it. The system I came up with is certainly not rocket science, but since I get lots of questions about it, I thought I’d post it here.
I recommend doing this over the kitchen sink to avoid a mess. Fill your empty fragrance lamp with fragrance lamp oil until you can see it almost to the top of the neck opening of the lamp (yes, you’re overfilling it at this point). Now pour the fragrance lamp oil from the lamp into an empty glass measuring cup (Pyrex, Anchor Hocking). If your lamp is a large one, you will probably want to use a 2-cup measuring cup to make sure you have enough room for all the fragrance lamp oil. Make note of how much you’ve emptied into the measuring cup and pour 1/3 of that amount back into the fragrance lamp oil bottle. The remainder, 2/3 of what was emptied from the lamp, is your ‘target’ amount for filling that particular fragrance lamp. If you’re really organized, write this amount on a little label or piece of tape that you can stick to the bottom of the lamp for reference. If you don’t want to use fragrance lamp oil to make this calculation, water will do the trick… just make sure let the inside of your lamp dry out before using it again.
