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July 7, 2012

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.

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