Before disposables, a lighter was furniture. Heavy, refillable, and it stayed put. Then it vanished for fifty years.
There used to be a lighter on the coffee table.
It was made of chrome or brass or glass, it weighed enough that you didn’t pick it up by accident, and it belonged to the room rather than to a person. Ronson and Dunhill made them properly and everybody else made a version. Then disposables arrived in the 1970s, cost almost nothing, and the table lighter disappeared so completely that most people under fifty have never seen one working.
This is that object, brought back, in Orange.
Houseplant is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s company. It launched in Canada in 2019 and came to the US in March 2021, and the thing that separates it from everything else in its category is that the objects came first. Cannabis accessories had spent decades stuck between two bad options: clinical white plastic that looked like a pharmacy, or head shop stuff covered in flames and skulls. Houseplant’s answer was to make homewares. Rogen throws ceramics himself and is unembarrassed about it, which is the whole tone of the brand in one detail.
A lighter you leave out on purpose, rather than one you lose on purpose.
The Block does what its name says. It’s a solid weighted block with a flame at the top, designed to sit in one place and be picked up with intent. The mass is the design. A heavy object communicates permanence before you’ve thought about it, which is exactly why the originals were made that way and exactly why disposables feel like nothing in the hand.
Orange is the harder colourway to find and the better one. Against a wooden table or a stone counter it reads as a deliberate colour decision rather than as an accessory, which is the difference between something sitting out and something being put away.
Colour: Orange
For Tobacco Use Only
Before disposables, a lighter was furniture. Heavy, refillable, and it stayed put. Then it vanished for fifty years.
There used to be a lighter on the coffee table.
It was made of chrome or brass or glass, it weighed enough that you didn’t pick it up by accident, and it belonged to the room rather than to a person. Ronson and Dunhill made them properly and everybody else made a version. Then disposables arrived in the 1970s, cost almost nothing, and the table lighter disappeared so completely that most people under fifty have never seen one working.
This is that object, brought back, in Orange.
Houseplant is Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s company. It launched in Canada in 2019 and came to the US in March 2021, and the thing that separates it from everything else in its category is that the objects came first. Cannabis accessories had spent decades stuck between two bad options: clinical white plastic that looked like a pharmacy, or head shop stuff covered in flames and skulls. Houseplant’s answer was to make homewares. Rogen throws ceramics himself and is unembarrassed about it, which is the whole tone of the brand in one detail.
A lighter you leave out on purpose, rather than one you lose on purpose.
The Block does what its name says. It’s a solid weighted block with a flame at the top, designed to sit in one place and be picked up with intent. The mass is the design. A heavy object communicates permanence before you’ve thought about it, which is exactly why the originals were made that way and exactly why disposables feel like nothing in the hand.
Orange is the harder colourway to find and the better one. Against a wooden table or a stone counter it reads as a deliberate colour decision rather than as an accessory, which is the difference between something sitting out and something being put away.
Colour: Orange
For Tobacco Use Only
