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: