Test Results :: Eden

Creation is Messy Eden (CiM470) is a gorgeous dark green transparent. It has aventurine in it, and I can see on the CiM pages that other people have had some luck keeping the sparkle and even magnifying it under clear, but I haven't experienced that. Regardless, it's a really pretty green and will make a fabulous encasement layer for my vine canes.

Eden, predictably, doesn't do anything when it is reduced.

From left to right, on top of Peppermint Cream, you see Slytherin Unique #2, Slytherin Unique #1, Algae, and Eden. Eden is a rich, evergreen green that is less yellow than the Slytherins and Algaes of the world.

Silver crusts up on top of Eden, and if you reduce and encase it, you get some blue haze.

Reducing silver glass on top of Eden is nice - I got pretty colours from my frit. The striking silver glass didn't do anything magical.

Eden is a stable, barely reactive colour. Apart from some separation in the Copper Green, Opal Yellow, and Ivory on top of it, it didn't do anything surprising. It's nice that it doesn't react with Ivory.

Here's a goddess bead made from Eden with some Raku shards.

Test Results :: Peppermint Cream

Peppermint Cream (CiM488) is a pale, yellowish green opaque colour. It is soft and creamy, and my rods were very well behaved, not shocking at all in the flame. It reminds me quite a bit of an older colour called Linen, except that it has a greenish cast to it.

Nothing of any significance happens when you reduce Peppermint Cream.

This colour is a touch lighter than Dirty Martini and just a shade or two yellower.

When I encased Peppermint Cream after putting silver on it, it cracked under my Effetre 006 Clear. This doesn't mean you shouldn't encase it, but it definitely means that you shouldn't encase it after putting silver on it. This has happened to me with other colours that are otherwise perfectly compatible like Effetre Petroleum Green and CiM Linen. Just proceed with caution, and make a test bead before embarking on a big run of beads the way you always should anyway.

Peppermint Cream seems to be an average base colour for silver glass. It fumed a bit when I reduced the reduction frit, and the TerraNova2 frit started to strike, but no magic happened.

Peppermint Cream is not terribly reactive, but it does separate on top of Tuxedo and Ivory.  On top of Tuxedo, it has a milk-moustache sort of appearance, almost translucent.

Other colours (Ivory, Opal Yellow, Copper Green, Tuxedo) all seem to spread out on top of it.

Also, you can see in the Tuxedo dots and stringer lines that Peppermint Cream made Tuxedo bleed out into it quite a bit.

Here are some other beads that include some Peppermint Cream:

Test Results :: Pistachio

Effetre Pistachio (EFF415) is a gorgeous yellow-green-grey ochre colour, both greener and lighter than most batches of Vetrofond  Yellow Ochre. It's similar to Effetre Apple Blush, but is lighter and more subdued in hue. It's a streaky colour, so sometimes when you use it you get lines in your work where it joins onto itself, but that's its only real flaw.

As you melt Pistachio, it goes a bit lighter than its rod colour, but as you use it the colour all comes back. You can see in the left bead here that it is a bit lighter - it's only because I hadn't struck all of the colour back into it. Pistachio doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Here you can see that Pistachio reacts with silver in a similar manner to Ivory. Silver discolours and covers its surface when you use it on top, and when you reduce and encase the silver it gets pinkish and blueish tones in it.

Pistachio is an interesting base colour for reducing silver glass because of the neat colour contrast, and I got some nice colour in my TerraNova2 frit, but overall these test beads weren't very remarkable.

Pistachio and Copper Green form a mutual dark line reaction that is more pronounced and invasive when the Pistachio is on top.  It does this with Opal Yellow, too, in a similar way to what you see when you use Opal Yellow and Ivory together.

Ivory separates on top of Pistachio and Pistachio separates on top of Ivory.

Here are some other beads that include Pistachio:

Test Results :: Dark Topaz

Effetre Dark Topaz (016) is a rich, dark transparent colour that is reminiscent of Root Beer or Coca Cola. In terms of reactions, Dark Topaz is most similar to Ivory and other colours like Ivory. It has strong reactions to silver and copper, and is pretty easy-going with everything else.

Dark Topaz doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Dark Topaz makes an interesting base for silver leaf. Silver behaves on it much the same way that it behaves on Ivory. There's no point in encasing silver foil with Dark Topaz - it kills it.

Dark Topaz is a beautiful base colour for both reducing and striking silver glass. It's got something in it that serves as a catalyst.

Like Ivory, Dark Topaz forms a brown line reaction with Opal Yellow.

Dark Topaz turns a greyish brown on top of Copper Green

Ivory and Peace both separate on top of Dark Topaz.

You can encase goldstone with Dark Topaz, but if you do, don't get it really hot for prolonged periods of time. If you do, it turns a blechy dark grey colour because the copper in the goldstone reacts with the metals in the Dark Topaz. If you want to encase your goldstone with a dark brown transparent to accentuate its beauty, Oliva Nera (Black Olive) is a better choice because it won't discolour.

Here are some beads that contain Dark Topaz.

Test Results :: Cotswold Blue

CiM Cotswold Blue (CiM554) is a medium teal opaque. It's a bit reactive with Ivory, but is otherwise fairly well behaved. My rods of Cotswold Blue were mildly shocky, but I liked it enough anyway to order a full pound of it, so I clearly didn't mind it all that much.

Cotswold Blue doesn't change colour when you reduce it.

Silver leaf on top of Cotswold Blue largely disappears, beading up in tiny little silver granules on the surface. When the silver is reduced an encased, it turns an odd mustardy colour.

The Cotswold Blue bead with silver on it cracked. You can't see the cracking in the photo very well, but it cracked on a diagonal under the clear. More and more, I am realizing that these darker teal blue colours (Petroleum Green, Rainforest, and this one among others) encase just fine until you add silver, but that the addition of silver somehow tips the crack balance. I'm not sure why this is the case, but am glad that I'm finding a pattern that will make this problem easy to avoid.

Cotswold Blue is a very pretty base colour for striking silver glass, and I got nice colours from my TerraNova2 frit on top of it. Its colour isn't really conducive to hosting the reducing silver glass colours since it is so similar, but you can see that there was some interesting spreading behaviour in that frit in the leftmost bead above, too.

Copper Green, Ivory, and Opal Yellow all separate on top of Cotswold Blue. Cotswold Blue is such a streaky colour that it separates on top of everything.

The only real reactions of note here were:

• Ivory and Cotswold Blue form a mutual dark line reaction
• The edges where Peace and Cotswold Blue meet get sort of fuzzy and translucent. You can see this in both beads.

Here are some other beads that include Cotswold Blue:

Test Results :: Caramel

Reichenbach Caramel (RL7205) is a medium, pinkish brown opaque colour. It's a reactive colour, and is translucent when used in thin layers on top of other colours. This means that it goes a bit blotchy and see-through when you use it on top of very dark colours, and it fades out and looks yellower than itself when it's used on top of very pale colours.

It's browner than Flamingo, but it has many of the same kinds of reactions with other colours.

Here you can see the colour variation of Caramel. It can't decide if it's brown or pink. And then, when you reduce it, it can't decide whether it's purple or blue.

Silver leaf turns Caramel a yellowish colour. Reducing and encasing the silver just makes for a yellowish grey layer under your clear, which it seems wise to avoid.

I got pretty colour and reaction outlines from my reducing silver glass frit on top of this colour. I also got a very nice, almost-magical starting strike from my TerraNova2 frit. So, this colour seems to make a very pretty base colour for silver glass.

So, that whiteish outline that developed around the Copper Green in the leftmost bead is new for me. Or at least I thought it was until I looked back at my Flamingo test results and saw that Copper Green did this with that colour as well.

On top of Caramel, Opal Yellow separates.  

Ivory and Caramel develop a reciprocal (and quite intense) black line reaction which, because of Caramel's translucence in thin layers, means that the Caramel develops a strange, brown blotchiness on top of Ivory.

Here are some pictures of beads that contain Caramel.

Test Results :: Serenity

CiM Serenity (CiM557) is a gorgeous medium teal transparent. It's a beautiful shade of teal blue and really fills a hole in my palette. Although it is a blue-green and does react like one, its reactivity is far gentler than other colours in the same hue range, making it possible to use this colour with Ivory and other sulfur colours without significant discolouration.

I found Serenity nice to work with. It can boil if you let it get too hot, and you can see some small bubbles in one of the spacer beads above, but on the whole, bubbling problems with Serenity are avoidable by working cool. Serenity does not change colour when you reduce it.

Serenity is not as saturated as CiM Great Bluedini but it is around the same shade of teal. It is a great deal bluer than Effetre Light Teal and is both darker and greener than Effetre Light Aqua.

Silver leaf beads up and largely disappears on top of Serenity, and if the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a greyish blanket under the clear layer. These reactions are both consistent with what I experienced with CiM Great Bluedini.

Also similarly to Great Bluedini, Serenity makes a decent base colour for silver glasses. The reduction frits look pretty on top of it, and I got a reasonably good starting strike from my TerraNova2 frit.

First, I apologize for the dirt in this picture. I try to get all of the beads clean, even soaking them in clean water after cleaning the bead release out, but some of it always seems to get by me.

Like other teal colours, Serenity will develop a dark line reaction with Ivory. In Serenity's case, this reaction line is very thin and gentle, which is nice.

Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate on top of Serenity.

Serenity's presence seems to inhibit Copper Green from developing that greyish sheen it often likes to develop in the flame.

These beads all contain some Serenity.