“Light bulb filled with glow-in-the-dark pigment encased in a solid brick of clear resin. “

It IS definitely a brick..I wouldn’t recommend buying this as a gift for your granny, she may injure herself after dropping it on her foot upon opening.

The concept of light without a plug just didn’t click with me first, and the brief instructions on the packaging was not helping. So after realising all I had to do was leave it on the window sill, not actually screw it into a light fixture, I felt more comfortable trialling it.

How it is meant to work: leave it to recharge during the day and it lights up at night by the process of photoluminescence (absorbs light and emits light slowly).

Now I didn’t expect to be blinded by light after my first experiment (it did state “subtle and tranquil glowing”), but I did think it would illuminate enough that I could maybe see the outline of my phone placed beside it. Unfortunately, this was not the case, despite numerous attempts at recharging it.

As per instructions, I allowed it to recharge during the day, firstly I placed it in the sitting room where there was a fair supply of sunlight throughout the day. However, after the first night’s failure, I decided to try it out in the sunkissed kitchen window during a three day bright spell. This did not work either and each night the glow was barely obvious, I had to squint to see if it was working in a dark room. I then tried using some artificial light (an average household lamp) and did not experience any better results.

On a good note, it does look rather funky and would suit the type of people who rushed to buy the lava lamps when they were in their hay day. It could double as a paper weight during the day or door stop? Besides that, the functionality is minimal.

On the packaging, it said “at night it comes alive”… it does not live up to this statement in the slightest, which is a shame as it is a good concept. I would consider buying this as a gift, if only it actually worked.  The price of £16.95 would be hard to justify even if it did glow in the dark but I would have kept it a maximum £10 to be a worthy stocking filler for family and friends. In its’ current form, it is not something that I would buy for either myself or anyone I particularly liked.

Available from and Amazon