Rosemary Salt Oil Lamp

Have you ever found yourself in the dark with no candles available? No steady source of light? This happened to us years ago when a strong typhoon hit our country. The power was out for a week with no candles for light during the night. We found a way to light up the cold, dark night.

Today I will share with you a great light source by using everyday materials that everyone has at home. I will show you how to make your very own Rosemary Salt Oil Lamp.

The fuel that we will be using is used vegetable oil from the kitchen. I would suggest not using oil that was used to fry fish, it somehow gives out a fishy scent. I used oil that was used to fry fried chicken and pork chops. You could also use any type of cooking oil and even use a fresh batch if you prefer.

Everyone has salt at home and used less expensive rock salt but any type of salt would work.

Find an empty jar. For this project, we use a small empty sardine bottle. You can also use a bigger jar if you want the lamp to last for hours.

Fill up almost half of the bottle with salt.

You will need to make your wick and a thin stick would do since our bottle is small.

To wrap the stick we will need some cotton.

Carefully wrap the stick with cotton and make sure the wrap is not too thick.

Once the stick has been completely wrapped with cotton. This is what it should look like. Make sure it is tightly wrapped and would not fall off.

Place the wick in the middle, reaching the bottom of the bottle.

Pour the oil into the bottle and soak the entire wick in oil while pouring.

As long as you have a part of the wick still showing, this amount of oil should be enough.

To add fragrance while the lamp is burning we will use dried rosemary. It is better to use fresh rosemary but since we don't have it this will do. Leaving the rosemary soaked for days will give out a better scent. But you could also use other herbs for this project. The best way to know what works best is by experimenting. So try other variants.

Now it is time to light up our lamp. It would be a bit difficult lighting the wick so I suggest you use an oven lighter.

Our Rosemary Salt Oil Lamp is done. A quick, easy light source that would cost you almost nothing with the materials from home. This small one should last for a few hours but a bigger lamp can last up to 12 hours.

If ever you find yourself in the dark with no candles available, just remember that you could always make light amidst the dark cold night. Not only that, if you have a romantic mood tonight, just make a few of these lamps, play some romantic jazz and for sure your night will be magical.

Thank you for joining us today and I hope you enjoyed the process that we shared with you. We hope that it would help you when the time comes. Always remember it is better to recycle whenever we can.

Hope to see you again soon and stay safe.

All photos are original and taken with

Lumix GX85 and Olympus 45mm f1.8