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.