Gallery: The Crystal Bulb is a Dazzlin...

Light bulbs aren’t (usually) the most important part of a room’s decor. Interior designers are experts at masking the light source, and instead focusing the beam on a painting or sofa. That’s fine if you’re using an energy-hogging incandescent or even the bizarre looking CFL, but when you’ve got a light bulb that sparkles like the Crystal Bulb, be prepared to ditch your lampshades permanently.

Available through the studio of Lee Broom, one of the UK’s leading interior and product designers, each Crystal Bulb is hand-blown then cut with a classic crystal pattern and etched with the Lee Broom logo. Although the design is all Broom’s, the crystal is handled by the experts at Cumbria Crystal, the sole remaining producer of handmade English full lead crystal in the UK.

Even though it looks like the Queen of Sheba’s light bulb, the Crystal Bulb is actually more like a tiny lamp. Hidden inside the crystal globe is a tiny LED, ensuring a long life of illumination without wasting energy. Separate fittings make it possible to use the Crystal Bulb in everything from normal lamps to pendant fixtures. Each pendant fitting includes the gold silk flex colour matched to the fitting and a brushed brass ceiling rose.

And we’re not the only ones dazzled by Broom’s masterful LED light bulb design: it’s already secured a place on the shortlist for the 2012 British Design Awards.

+Lee Broom