Test Results :: Ivory (Vetrofond)

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 - w/ Raku, 8 & 9 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory & Peace, 10 - w/ Gaia Stringer (reduced)

Vetrofond Ivory is a very nice colour. it has a beautiful, creamy consistency and is less violently reactive than Effetre Light Ivory. It's more of a true off-white, whereas some batches of Effetre Light Ivory (which I also have deep love for) has tendencies to a more orangey, light caramel colour. Vetrofond Ivory curdles and spreads less than Effetre Light Ivory.

Vetrofond Ivory is a pale, neutral opaque colour. It can look somewhat translucent in thin layers, and in stringer form, it is more transparent than its Effetre cousin. Some batches of Vetrofond Ivory are more translucent than others, and there is a verry sheer batch out there that is known as 'Translucent Ivory' that is very nice indeed.

Here, you can see that the reaction with silver is ever-so-slightly different with Vetrofond Ivory than it is with Effetre Light Ivory. On top of Vetrofond Ivory, silver does a little less spreading, and has more of a grey/brown appearance without the ethereal blueness that I got on top of the Effetre. When the silver is reduced and encased, the portions of the Ivory that fumed brown with silver revert back to a more Ivory appearance, and the silver portions remain more or less the same colour.

Silver glass is nice on Vetrofond Ivory. Here, my reduction frit got ever-so-slightly ringed with brown, and the TerraNova2 frit struck to blues and purples, also with a brown outline. Reducing the silver glass frit in the bead on the left fumed the Ivory to a slightly warmer colour -- sort of like toasting a marshmallow.

Vetrofond Ivory reacts with other colours very similarly to Effetre Light Ivory.

Ivory separates slightly on top of Tuxedo, and Tuxedo bleeds into it when used on top of it in stringer designs.

Copper Green and Ivory have a reciprocal dark line reaction.

A dark, greyish line reaction appears between Ivory and Opal Yellow. This reaction is darker and more pronounced when Opal Yellow is used on top of Ivory.

Vetrofond Ivory makes Effetre Ivory separate. You can see this slightly in the bead on the right where the Light Ivory dots and stringer lines have darker pinpoints and streaks of colour in their centres. In the bead on the left, you can see the pronounced different tone of Vetrofond Ivory on top of the darker, more orange hue of the Effetre Light Ivory.

There are no noticeable reactions between Ivory and Peace. The colours are so close that it's very difficult to even see where one begins and the other leaves off.

Test Results :: Peachy Keen

1 - Over Silver Foil, 2 - w/ Silver Leaf, 3 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 4 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 5 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 6 - In Silver Glass Frit Stringer (encased), 7 - Plain, 8 - Plain (reduced), 9 - Over Clear, 10 & 11 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

CiM Peachy Keen is a juicy, beautiful light peach transparent. Peachy Keen is far brighter and is quite a lot more saturated than Lauscha Peach, but like Lauscha Peach, the consistency of Peachy Keen is very nice. I didn't experience any boiling, shocking, splintering or any other annoying behaviour while I was using it.

On top of Peachy Keen, silver leaf sort of disperses and forms itself into little balls on the surface. The silver definitely discolours the Peachy Keen, turning it a brownish colour. When the silver is reduced and encased, magic happens. You can see in the bead on the right that the silver has turned all different shades of blue and purple under the encasement layer of Effetre Clear.

Peachy Keen turns silver golden when it is used to encase.

I got much more interesting results from this frit stringer test than I anticipated. I used my reducing silver glass frit blend (which contains a bunch of random Double Helix reduction frits, currently, as well as the last of my Black Nebula frit). I've made frit stringer, here, from Peachy Keen by dipping it in the reducing silver glass frit three times, coating it more or less completely.  I then made a core of Peachy Keen, encased it with the frit stringer and encased it without reducing.

The effect, with Peachy Keen, is really too dark. It's hard to see what's going on in there. But it worked!

There isn't really a lot going on in these test beads with silver glass. I got ok colour from the reducing silver glass frit, but my TerraNova2 frit just sat on top of the bead like a dead thing.

However, I feel the same way about this colour as I do about Cardamom... it does not matter that silver glass is not its forte.

Peachy Keen is not very reactive with these colours I test with, but there are a couple of things to say about these test beads.

Peachy Keen and Copper Green develop a mutual dark line reaction. The line seems to be an extremely dark green rather than black, so it's an entirely different reaction than the one that happens with Ivory, but it's definitely present in both of these test beads.

Peachy Keen does not react with Opal Yellow, but it does look very pretty on top of it.

Test Results :: Poseidon

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, Peace

CiM Poseidon is a vibrant, semi-opaque sky blue. It is sensitive to heat, and restriking it increases its translucency. You can see in my plain spacers that the first one is a bright, almost opaque colour. The spacer that I reduced has gone somewhat semi-opaque, and the colour is less intense.

Poseidon is bluer than than Kryptonite and Mint Lozenge. It is a little greener and quite a lot brighter than Effetre Sky Blue Opalino.

Here, you can see that Poseidon is very sensitive to silver. In the bead on the left, the silver has gone sort of a weird, lacy blue colour on top of Poseidon and that the glass underneath it has a sort of smokey, yellow fumed effect to it. Reducing and encasing the silver gets rid of the yellowishness, and leaves a shiny, patchy coating of silver under the clear that has little pinpricks of blueness to it  - although this blueness is the blue of the Poseidon peeking through, not a reaction with the silver the way it is with some colours.

Reducing silver glass on top of Poseidon fumes it a greenish colour, and reducing silver glass develops colour quite nicely on top of Poseidon, however the effect to me is too much blue in one place. I got very little action from my TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour.

Poseidon is similar to the other blue and green CiM semi-opaques in that it is quite reactive.

Not much reaction is evident when Tuxedo is used on top of Poseidon, however when Poseidon is used on top of Tuxedo, there is a slight bit of separation and you can see a darker thready line in the middle of Poseidon stringer lines.

Poseidon makes Copper Green separate a little, resulting in light lines around the Poseidon stringer work on top of Copper Green and a darker, mottled outline around Copper Green stringer work on top of Poseidon.

Opal Yellow and Peace both separate when used on top of Poseidon, and Poseidon makes Peace and Opal Yellow rise up around it in little halos.

Poseidon and Ivory have a mutual dark line reaction that is more pronounced when Ivory is used on top of Poseidon. When Poseidon is used on top of Ivory, you can see that the brown effect is all-over, making the dots and stringer lines look sort of like tea stains. This was sort of surprising because neither Mint Lozenge nor Kryptonite react this way with Ivory, and even though I realize that Poseidon is an entirely new colour, for some reason I expected it to be similar in this respect.

Here, I've used Poseidon as one of the encasement layers in the base bead.

Test Results :: Linen

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace

CiM Linen is a pale neutral colour, and is the closest thing to a Light Ivory that is available from Creation is Messy. In terms of its consistency, it is closer to Vetrofond Light Ivory than to Effetre, however it is not really like either colour because the reactions are quite different, except for it being a pale, neutral, opaque colour. In terms of hue, prior to any reducing or fuming, the colour of Linen is slightly more on the yellow side than either Effetre or Vetrofond Light Ivory.

CiM Linen is not a very streaky colour, and has a nice, even consistency. When I reduced it, the colour got warmer. I'm not sure if that's because Linen strikes a little, or if the reduction is what changed the colour, so that will require additional investigation.

The addition of silver fumes the surface of Linen to a warm brown colour. On the surface, the silver is mottled golds, greys and blues and is quite shiny.

When the silver is reduced and encased, the edges of it develop a rich blue colour and the silver itself becomes very shiny. I used Effetre 006 clear in this test, and just like what happened with Cardamom and Coconut Milk, I got some weird cracks in the bead. I didn't try encasing Linen with any other colour, and I haven't managed to solve this mystery. Either there's something wrong with my Effetre clear, or Linen does not like being encased with it.

When silver glass frit is reduced on Linen, it develops broad, brown halos around it. The colour develops well on the frit, and just like the beads with silver, the surface of the Linen fumes to a warmer, browner hue. I got decent colour out of my TerraNova2 frit on top of Linen as well.

Linen separates on top of Tuxedo, and the colour concentrates in the middle of dots and stringer lines. When Tuxedo is used on top of Linen, the Linen rises up around it in halos.

When Linen is used on top of Copper Green, it seems to take on the colour of the Copper Green. Rather than developing a dark line, the edges of the Linen look greenish, and the Linen separates a little. Oddly enough, this reaction is completely different when Copper Green is used on top of Linen. On top of Linen, Copper Green develops a dark, webby outline.

Linen separates and looks pink on top of Opal Yellow, and when Opal Yellow is used on top of Linen, it develops a pinkish border and looks like it is floating just above the bead's surface.

Linen makes Ivory separate. You can see this most clearly in the bead on the right.

There doesn't seem to be any reaction between Linen and Peace, although it is much easier to see Peace when it is used on top of Linen than the other way around.

I silvered Linen and used it here to make the mushroom cap and stem.

Test Results :: Light Ivory (Effetre)

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 - w/ Raku, 8 & 9 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory & Peace, 10 - w/ Gaia Stringer (reduced)

Effetre Light Ivory is a pale, neutral opaque colour that is very soft and somewhat 'grainy' in consistency. It has a tendency to curdle and spread, although some batches of it are less prone to do this than others.

When I first started lampworking, I had a batch of Light Ivory that was great for making flower petals. If you look back at my test results for Light Brown Transparent, you will see an example of a flower there that I made with Ivory and Light Brown. My most recent batch of Ivory wouldn't do this as well because it likes to feather and spread on top of transparent colours.

Ivory, as you can see, is very reactive with silver. Silver spreads out on top of Ivory, and the reaction takes over a great deal of the bead. The reaction is in places bluish, and in others yellowish and in still others just dark or light grey. It's neat though, and reducing and encasing it doesn't change it much.

Silver glass is nice on top of Ivory. I particularly like reducing silver glass on Ivory... I don't usually have a lot of luck with the striking silver glass colours on top of it, but I did get some colour in my TerraNova2 frit and I like how each bit of frit has developed its own discrete outline.

On top of Tuxedo, Ivory sort of 'flees to the middle' of itself, leaving the outside part of the dots and stringer lines looking oddly faded and three-dimensional. When I used Tuxedo on top of Ivory, there is a hint of bleed around the Tuxedo dots and stringer lines.

Ivory and Copper Green develop a mutual dark line reaction. Also, the outline is irregular, particularly where Copper Green is on top of Ivory, and has little spiky bits poking out of it.

On top of Opal Yellow, Ivory develops a greyish outline. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Ivory, the outline is more pronounced, looking like sharp crevices around the Opal Yellow dots and stringer lines. In both cases, the Opal Yellow wherever it surrounds the Ivory seems to take on a slightly greyish hue.

There's not much to report in terms of reactions between Ivory and Peace. There's some separation, I think, but it's hard to tell because it's hard to see, even with the bead right in front of me.

Test Results :: Cardamom

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory & Peace

CiM Cardamom is a medium yellowish green colour. It has a fairly even consistency, with only a little bit of streakiness and is a great addition to our 104 palette. It's darker and greener than Effetre Uranium Yellow, and is much lighter and more gentle than CiM Elphaba. I haven't tested the Effetre/Vetrofond green opaques yet but I am pretty certain you won't find a duplicate there, either.

When silver leaf is melted into the surface of Cardamom, it just looks sort of grey and patchy. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a shiny silvery blanket over top of the Cardamom. However, I used Effetre clear in the bead on the right and just like what happened with my Coconut Milk test bead, there are crazy, curly cracks running all through this bead that appeared a day or two after it was annealed.

The strange thing about this is that I made a pretty large bead that had a core of Cardamom and then was encased three separate times, with three separate colours, and that bead has no evidence of malfunction whatsoever. This adds weight to my theory that it's my most recent batch of Effetre 006 clear that is the culprit here. I've shown the large, encased focal at the end of this post with a list of the other colours I encased the Cardamom with.

The reducing silver glass looks sort of pretty on top of Cardamom, but didn't get the super shine or do anything particularly noteworthy. The TerraNova2 frit fails to impress on top of this colour.

But that's ok, Cardamom is so appealing of a colour, being boring with silver doesn't really change how I feel about it.

Cardamom makes Tuxedo bleed. You can see in the bead on the left how the Tuxedo has greyed out the stringer lines of Cardamom that I made on top of it. In the bead on the right, the Tuxedo lines and dots are surrounded by a greyish haze.

Copper Green also bleeds into Cardamom a little when Cardamom dots and lines are made on top of it, however this reaction is not as evident when Copper Green is used on top of Cardamom.

The reaction with Opal Yellow is the weirdest one. In both of the beads aboce, Opal Yellow has developed a light line wherever Cardamom touches it. In the bead on the right, you can see a faint ivoryish line around the Cardamom dots and stringer lines, and in the bead on the right the Opal Yellow (which looks very yellow) is surrounded by a paler yellow border.

There are no real reactions to note between Cardamom and Ivory and Cardamom and Peace.

This bead has Cardamom in the vine cane, and I also used Cardamom in the core of this bead. I encased the Cardamom core with Vetrofond Light Aqua, followed by a layer of CiM Mint Lozenge and then finally, a thin layer of Uroboros 104 COE Clear.

Test Results :: Uranium Yellow

1 - Plain, 2 - Plain (reduced), 3 - w/ Silver Leaf, 4 - w/ Silver Leaf (reduced & encased), 5 - w/ Silver Glass Frit (reduced), 6 - w/ TerraNova2 Frit, 7 & 8 - w/ Tuxedo, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory & Peace

Effetre Uranium Yellow is a soft, yellowish green opaque. There's also, just to confuse things, another Uranium Yellow in the Effetre line, however that one is transparent and I haven't tested it yet.

This is a very soft colour that has a tendency to spread on top of other colours, and it is moderately reactive. Uranium Yellow has a very even consistency, and is not streaky.

When used with silver, Uranium Yellow loses its green-ness and looks very yellow. In the bead on the right, the silver leaf on top of Uranium Yellow is a cloudy pinkish brown colour. In the bead on the right, where I reduced and encased the silver, most of the brown colour has disappeared but the silver still looks faintly pink through the Clear. Neither of these reactions is all that attractive to me.

On top of Uranium Yellow, my reducing silver glass frit looks a little washed out and sad, and it has fumed the base bead to a lemony yellow colour. In the bead on the right, my TerraNova2 frit has developed some nice colour. My tentative position on Uranium Yellow is that it is a nicer base for striking silver glass than it is for the reducing colours.

On top of Tuxedo, Uranium Yellow separates and thins out at the edges, looking slightly translucent. In the bead on the right, you can see that the edges of the Tuxedo stringer dots and lines are faintly hazy and there has been a little bit of bleeding.

When Uranium Yellow is used on top of Copper Green, you can see some evidence of a bright turquoise bleeding into the stringer dots and lines, however this reaction is not evident at all when Copper Green is used on top of Uranium Yellow.

When Uranium Yellow is used on top of Opal Yellow, the Opal Yellow underneath blushes a pinkish orange colour, however this reaction is not evident when the colour positions are reversed, because in the bead on the right Opal Yellow looks just about as yellow as I've ever seen it.

There are no real reactions to note between Uranium Yellow and Ivory or Uranium Yellow and Peace.

Here's a fun organic bead with a base of Uranium Yellow.