Mathmos Astro Lamp for the US

I wanted a nice lava lamp for my desk (just like the one in the photo above). Little did I know the rabbit hole this would send me down.

The Exclusivity Restriction
The Lava Lamps in the US are made by a company called Lava Lite. They bought the exclusive rights to lava lamps in the US from the UK inventor Mathmos.

The quality between the 2 is very different. Many people have described the Lava Lite as a junky inferior product with a lower wattage light bulb. The Mathmos looks much more sleek. I watched their "making of" video and was impressed with the level of detail that goes into making a lamp.

So I thought, hey, I want one of the Mathmos Lava Lamps (called Astro Lamps). That's where stuff got weird. You can not buy a Mathmos from them due to the Lava Lite exclusivity. Furthermore I could find NO website that sold them with shipping to the US. Then I went to ebay. I couldn't find a good Mathmos there either.

I got a chuckle out of this forum thread:
http://oozinggoo.ning.com/forum/topics/mathmos-in-the-usa

"If one were to get a Mathmos lava lamp into the US via a secret submarine or coke mule (seriously the Mathmos rep made it sound like the feds would beat down my door if I even thought of shipping one over)"

Obsession
At this point this tipped over from a curiosity to a "I'm getting one of these bastards".

I remember back a few years ago when I wanted a Japanese papercraft model only available in Japan. After a lot of research I found a mail proxy that I shipped it to and they shipped it to me.

UK Mailer Proxy
I found a UK mailer proxy for getting the Mathmos: ukaddress.com

Signup is 5 pounds and handling fee for the package is an additional 5 pounds.

With ukaddress.com you get a legitimate UK address. They assign you a suite number that maps to your account. When they get the package they then send it to you via international shipping.

My UK address is very strange. I sent them a verification email to make sure I understood exactly what the address1, address2 and city were. They responded in a few hours

I then called my credit card company and told them that I was buying a product from the UK. They stayed on the phone with me as I placed the order to ensure everything went well.

Order Placed
I feel like I just threw a ton of money into the wind. I hope this goes well. {crosses fingers}

After you place an order you add to your incoming orders at ukaddress. If this works as planned I have to give ukaddress credit for a very easy and transparent process.

Power
The last piece of the puzzle was power. I could have modded the lamp but I went the easier route and bought a 110V -> 220V up convertor and UK powerstrip:

Shipping From Mathmos to ukaddress
I got a shipping confirmation this morning. woot! It is on its way to ukaddress.

Potential Snag
It appears there is a liquid restriction on international shipping from the UK. You can not ship any liquid over a litre. That is .26 gallons. Rumor has it that ukaddress will not ship any liquids. We shall see. I'm not digging the thought of returning a product remotely. I adjusted the description of my item to say it is a lamp from a lighting vendor. Nice and generic. It will say Mathmos on the outside of the box but they do produce non-liquid items...

All this trouble over a damn lava lamp. Seriously! Where is that secret submarine when you need it?

UKAddress has received the package
This email was waiting for me this morning:
subject:Your UKAddress Order 4732 has been approved

I was then asked to go to their site to ship the package.

The cost of shipping
Wow shipping and handling is expensive. This is the cheapest option:
UPS - UPS Express Saver (3-4 Days) - £35.50 + Processing Costs: £ 5.00 = $68

Well I'm all in at this point. Let's do this! 
After I made the payment it kicked me back to their main page with no indication that the payment was successful. After a couple of minutes I received a "shipment confirmed" email.

Looked like I'm good to go. It cost almost double the price to get it but I think it is on its way. Now it just needs to make it through customs. 

It has shipped!
I just got an email with a tracking number. The package is in route. 

Arriving today
The package will arrive today. Ironically, faster than the converter so I can't use it until that arrives :(

It is good to go
It arrived safe and sound and ironically with the other 2 packages.

So there you go. I can't believe it went this smoothly. It looks great on the desk. It's been warming up for 1/2 hour so far. I can't want to see this in action.