Meteor Lights’ Lumicel lampshade and light diffusion parchment offers a soft glowing luminescence superior to traditional fiberglass lighting materials without the drawbacks of fiberglass splinters, airborne fibers, and offgassing. Lumicel is durable, easy to clean, easy to work with, and most of all, it is an amazing lighting diffusion material.
Lumicel lighting parchment features:
- unparalleled soft glowing light diffusion
- alternative to fiberglass
- fibers are made from recycled water bottles
- no splinters when handled
- no airborne fibers when cut
- no offgassing
- more durable than fiberglass lampshade materials
- easy to fabricate with (paint, cut, punch, etc)
- will not rip or tear
- punched holes won’t blow out
- for lampshades, light fixtures, shoji screens, and more
better than fiberglass lampshade materials
Translucent Lumicel is slightly heavier than traditional fiberglass parchment, and unlike fiberglass lampshade materials, Lumicel won’t rip, tear, crumble, deteriorate, or result in blown-out holes. Like fiberglass lampshade or shoji plastic materials (e.g., Synskin by TAP Plastics), Lumicel cuts with scissors or a matte knife, and it can be punched with a paper or leather punch, or poked through with an awl. Instead of a brittle fiberglass substrate, the supple fibers in Lumicel are made from recycled water bottles (PET). Unlike fiberglass, Lumicel fabric strands won’t break off and become airborne, and they won’t leave prickly shards in your fingers.
Back in the day when Elvis curled his lip and T-Birds roamed the new highways, fiberglass lighting, lampshade, and shoji plastic parchments were available off the roll in many varieties. In addition to the common type with laminated or resin-saturated microfibers, many varieties were available with visible fiber strands of varying length and thickness.
vintage mid-century appearance
The only type of flexible fiberglass lampshade and lighting material available today is the laminated/resin-saturated microfiber version with no visible strands; the small bits of chopped fiberglass give it a rough, pebbly texture. On the other hand, Lumicel features long, random, visible strands, evoking both the classic original midcentury lampshades and shoji washi rice papers for the most authentic vintage mid-century modern look.
convenient workability
Any painting, staining, or printing technique that can be done with fiberglass parchment can be done with Lumicel. Please observe the same UL wattage, heat, and safety guidelines with Lumicel that you would with fiberglass lampshade parchment or shoji washi parchments.
Lumicel is flexible and conforms to a simple curve. Lumicel is great for conic, cylindrical (including ellipses), or rectangular shapes. It won’t conform to compound curves (like a sphere), so Lumicel is not ideal for compression-molded bullet-shaped shades, Nelson bubble lamps, or Noguchi Akari lamps. For drum, barrel, tube, tiered, atomic, and conic-shaped lampshades, like you might find on Luxcraft, Majestic, Modeline, Reglor, Continental, Moss, and Martz lamps, to name just a few mid-century lamp manufacturers, Lumicel is the perfect material.
Our lampshade parchment is milled in Europe to our specifications. It comes off a 59″ wide roll by the running yard in white only, with a minimum 57″ (usually 58″+) of usable width. For colored or patterned parchment pieces, we stain and/or pattern each piece individually, and there are limitations on the sizes we can paint and pattern (i.e., slightly under the dimensions of our worktable..). Hand-dyed lampshade parchment blanks are available on an ad hoc basis, so tell us what you’re looking for, and we’ll send you a quote.
light diffusion versatility
Lumicel can be used for nearly any lighting diffusion application: lampshades and light fixtures, lamps and lanterns, windows and architectural lighting panels, shoji screens and room dividers, art installations and signage. We believe Lumicel is the best and most versatile lighting diffusion material you will find. Let us know what your lighting project is. We can send you a small sample (regular envelope) for free, or a larger sample (Manilla envelope) for a few bucks’ postage.
Order Lumicel in the midcentury lighting store.