Last Updated on March 31, 2024 by Francis
People usually talk about the many benefits that salt lamps can have on one’s health. But are there any hidden or maybe not so hidden dangers that salt lamps bring into your home as soon as they become part of it? Should you let their beauty mesmerize you to the point where you don’t question if they have any side effects on your health, the health of your children or pets? Ultimately, can salt lamps make you sick?
Can salt lamps make you sick?
Salt lamps are made of Himalayan salt and they are not inherently bad for your physical or mental health. The situation is a bit different when it comes to pets, but we’ll talk about that later. However, the short answer to this question is that no, salt lamps are safe to have in your home or office, but there is a tiny disclaimer to this statement. Even though salt is not a hazardous material when it comes to humans, salt lamps can pose potential threats to your health based on how you care about them and how good of salt lamps they are. In the next few sections we’ll see how salt lamps can be indirectly dangerous for you and how you can protect yourself from the potential health risks from using a salt lamp.
Ways in which salt lamps could make you sick or be dangerous
As we already mentioned, it is where you buy it from, how you use it and the way you care about your salt lamp that can make your experience with it joyful or full of health risks. Let’s take a look at some of the things that could be dangerous when it comes to salt lamps.
You bought a bad-quality salt lamp
We all want to save some money when buying things, but that might not always be the best thing to do. When it comes to lamps, lower prices can mean badly-manufactured products and bad-quality parts used in the making of the lamp. Just think about what can happen if your lamp has a poorly-manufactured light bulb with a cheap electrical wiring. Not good, right? Poorly-manufactured and poorly-assembled lamps can result into overheating of the lamp, electrical shorts and even fires, which are all potentially dangerous situations in which you can be harmed. Therefore, make sure you buy your salt lamp from a reliable manufacturer.
Your lamp has started to corrode
If you don’t have your salt lamp turned on from 16 to 24 hours a day, the water that the salt has collected from the air will stay on the surface of the lamp. This is because your lamp needs the heat from its light bulb to get rid of the moisture and stay dry. However, because there’s no heat, the water will be accumulating on the lamp’s surface until its starts to drip down the salt chunk and over the base or your furniture. When this happens, corrosion might be a potential danger. Corrosion won’t necessarily make you sick, but it will for sure have you spending money on buying a new furniture. Keep your salt lamp turned on throughout the day and turn it on after cleaning it with a damp towel to avoid the corrosion of its base and your furniture.
Heavy salt lamps
Many salt lamp models are heavy and bulky and this leads to a bigger risk of them hurting you if they ever fall down. We recommend you have your salt lamp put somewhere on the ground or somewhere where the risk of it falling is close to zero. This is really something you should think about, especially if you have little children or pets who really like to run around the house and explore it.
Your lamp has a small base
Salt lamps with small bases are generally easier to knock off. Again, this is especially important if you have children or pets. Salt lamps are usually pretty heavy and your child, pet and even you can get hurt if they happen to fall on you. We recommend you get a salt lamp with a larger base so that the base will better support the weight of the lamp, keeping it straight up even if you or someone else accidentally bumps into it.
Salt lamps and children
We did already discuss how your salt lamp can be potentially dangerous for a child. Children are very energetic and they like to play with the objects in the house, so you shouldn’t be surprised if they end up pushing the salt lamp off a cupboard or of the shelf. Because salt lamps are usually heavy, they can hurt a child if they happen to fall on it, and this is why they should be kept off the reach of children. However, children often express their curiosity for the world in different ways and it could happen that they end up licking the salt lamp. Eating too much salt cause children to experience gastric problems and other health issues, so our advice to keep the lamp off the reach of children applies in this scenario as well.
Salt lamps can make your pet sick
Like children, pet are very curious and they also like running around, playing. It could happen that your pet becomes very attracted to the salt lamp and licks it. Unlike us, pets are not supposed to eat a lot of salt, and this is especially true for cats. If cats ingest too much salt, they can become sick and get diarrhea, vomit and get to experience even more dangerous health issues. Therefore, put your lamp somewhere where your pets can’t reach it and protect them from their own nature.
Salt lamps and fire
Fire in salt lamps is not a very common thing, but it can, however, happen. Bad-quality light bulbs, faulty dimmers, or poor manufacturing of the lamp can sometimes make a lamp burst in flames. Make sure that your lamp doesn’t have its light bulb too close to the salt chunk and that the lamp itself is not overheating. Again, salt lamp fires are extremely rare, but these are the factors that could cause one.
