Test Results :: Mermaid

1 - Plain, 2 - Reduced, 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Striking Color Frit, 5 - w/ Triton, 6 - As a floral, 7 & 8 - w/ Dark Violet, 9 - w/ Copper Green, 10 - w/ Petroleum Green, 11 - w/ Ivory, 12 - w/ Black

O Mermaid... how vivid and streaky you are!  How beautifully greener than turquoise yet bluer than petroleum!

General Impressions
CiM Mermaid is a perfect teal opaque.  It's creamy and smooth, it is pretty stable, and it's got an interesting streakiness to it that many of the CiM colours have.  It reminds me of a just slightly bluer version of the  Elphaba Dark Unique that so many people are having trouble finding right now.  Most teals and turquoises spark and pit in the flame, but Mermaid seems for the most part to resist this.

The picture below shows a close-up of Bead #9 (Copper Green and Mermaid) and Bead #10 (Mermaid & Petroleum Green).

There are slight reactions in both cases, but what is most interesting to me about this is how much more pitting there is on the Copper Green vs. the Mermaid in the same bead, worked in the same flame for the same length of time.  I really expected it to pit easily, because if memory serves me, Fremen and Celadon both pit fairly readily.  It will be nice not to have to worry as much about those little holes, although I don't technically mind them - I make mostly organic beads and I'm happy for the glass to do whatever weird surface thing it fancies, most of the time.

Reduction
Reducing Mermaid (Bead #2) results in a brick-red coating.  I don't like it, so I'll probably never do this again.  Some people might think it's attractive, though, and it's a deeper red than the coating that forms on turquoise.

Reactions
With silver, Mermaid is pretty stable and while I got a slight reaction with Silver Leaf (Bead #3), it was just a slight yellowing of the glass colour.

Mermaid seems to make a good base colour for silver glass.  I want to play with it some more, but the Triton I reduced on Bead #5 looks a little greener than Triton usually does.  I think that Mermaid will look really great with Raku.

With Ivory, Mermaid develops the customary Green/Ivory dark line reaction.  (Bead #11)

With Dark Violet, Mermaid doesn't seem to do much at all apart from make the Dark Violet lighten ever-so-slightly around the edges.  I was pretty disappointed because usually green + purple = weirdness.  Not with Mermaid - or maybe just not with Dark Violet.  I was craving some crazy reaction action so much that I made two beads with this combination instead of just one.  I'm really not a big fan of these two colours coexisting in the same bead without any buffer. (Bead #7 & #8)

I feel like I should have more to say about this colour, and I guess I probably will as I go along.  I will definitely be buying and using more Mermaid, even though it isn't ideal for the kinds of beads I customarily make.  It stays put, which I'm sure I can find a use for.

This bead is made with Mermaid as well: