Any candle can illuminate a room, but only those made by Laura “Lava” Lampe can illuminate the female experience.
Lampe puts out a line of devotional candles that skewer everything from dieting (“Open up the heavenly gates so that I may again walk in the path of thinness”) to dysfunction (“Protect me from the annual invasion of my peculiar relatives. . .grant me the ability to feign gratitude upon receiving yet another crocheted poodle tissue cover.”)
Whether Lampe’s 37 satirical prayer votives can neutralize bad vibes is unproven, but a little irreverence never hurts — especially when it comes to bad stylists (“I place my feeble hair before thee”) or the Internal Revenue Service (“Instruct me in the successful completion of my 1040 form”).
“I have a strange sense of humor, but I see a lot of everyday life is just plain funny,” said Lampe, who heads up a Seattle-based company called Three Tacky Texans, which, right away, tells you something about its owner.
Lampe — who gets most of her suggestions from friends and customers — is always looking for new ideas. “It should be witty, not nasty. A lot of people thought I should do an O.J. candle, but I didn’t want to contribute to the O.J. industry.”
As for Lampe, her personal favorite is the “Prayer for Positive Cash Flow.”
“That’s always a good one for an artist to have,” she said.
The candles retail for $12. They are available at Rinky Dink, 2216 N. Clybourn; Gaymart, 3457 N. Halsted; Possibilities, 1235 N. Chicago Ave., Evanston; and Cocoon, 212 S. 3rd St., Geneva.
