Test Results :: Elixir

CiM Elixir (CiM485) is the colour Effetre Light Grass Green wants to be when it grows up. It's a beautiful light green translucent colour that almost glows with life.

Reducing Elixir doesn't do much to change it, but the smaller bead in this picture has less colour built up and less opalescence (because there is less glass) and so it looks darker.

Here you can see Elixir beside its cousin, Elixir Sparkle.  I am not doing these colour tests with Elixir Sparkle, but you can see some other beads I made with it at the end of this post. I found that Elixir Sparkle was not actually sparkly because the aventurine melted as I melted the glass, but it does end up an interesting streaky colour, quite a bit darker than Elixir-no-sparkle.

Elixir is not very interesting with silver and doesn't discolour silver at all. When I reduced and encased silver leaf on top of it, I got a bit of blueness on any patches not completely silver-coloured. This reaction is more to do with the silver itself than the Elixir, but there are colours it doesn't happen with so it is still worth noting.

Elixir makes a pretty decent base colour for silver glass.

On top of Elixir, Copper Green separates and turns muddy/grey/reddish around its edges.When the Elixir is on top, the colour in Copper Green sort of runs away from it, looking very light along the edges of the Elixir stringer.

Apart from a very minor amount of separation in Opal Yellow on top of it, that's the only major reaction that these colours displayed.

Here are some other beads that include Elixir:

And here is one with Elixir Sparkle.  I liked this colour too, but its unsparkly cousin is the one that stole my heart.

Test Results :: Dark Turquoise Alabastro

Effetre Dark Turquoise Alabastro (EFF356) is a pretty, medium blue semi-opaque colour. It is reactive in ways that are predictable for a blue glass, developing a dark line reaction with Ivory.

I've decided that the Effetre Alabastros are going on my shit list. I don't hate this one nearly as much as I disliked Ivory Alabastro, but it is annoying to use because it bubbles and is a little shocky. When there are semi-opaques in the CiM line like Electric Avenue and Tardis that don't behave this way, I don't see any need to put myself through the pain and irritation of using these Effetre Alabastro colours.

Nothing happens when you reduce Dark Turquoise Alabastro. I was a little surprised, because I thought it might get that red copper reduction finish on the surface, but it didn't.

On top of Dark Turquoise Alabastro, silver is fairly inert. It's interesting when you reduce and encase it because that turns it yellow.

Dark Turquoise Alabastro makes a reasonable base colour for striking silver glass. I got a nice start from my TerraNova2 frit on top of this colour.

Dark Turquoise Alabastro develops a dark line reaction with Ivory. Because of its translucency, this dark reaction is also visible to a slightly lesser extent in the dots and lines as a whole, turning them a smoky brownish colour. Copper Green and Opal Yellow both separate on top of Dark Turquoise Alabastro.

I haven't done much with this colour because using it to make these test beads didn't make me love it enough to make even one more bead. If I do ever use it to make something more exciting, I'll come back and update this post.

Test Results :: Pine Tree Green Alabastro

Effetre Pine Tree Green Alabastro (EFF344) is a dark green semi-opaque glass. For an Alabastro, it is fairly well-behaved, but my rods were still a bit shocky and you really do need to be careful in order not to boil this colour, so work it cool.

This is a very beautiful colour of green if you can work it without boiling it.

Pine Tree Green Alabastro does not change colour when you reduce it.

Here, you can see that when silver leaf is used on top of Pine Tree Green Alabastro, it disperses across the surface pretty widely and beads up into tiny grains of silver on top of it. When the silver is reduced and encased, it forms a more uniform greyish coating.

This colour is a good base for silver glass. I got great colour in both of my tests compared to a lot of other glass colours.

Here, in the rightmost bead, you can see how luminously transparent and pretty this colour is when used in thin layers over Opal Yellow and White.

On top of Pine Tree Green Alabastro, Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory, and Peace all separate.

On top of Ivory, you can see a dark line developed around the Pine Tree Green Alabastro, and you can also see through it that the darkening also happens underneath the green. Curiously, there is no dark line reaction when the Ivory is on top.

I don't have any other beads to share using this colour. I didn't feel inspired to do more with it after I made these test beads so I sold it. I'll be back to update this with pictures of what I make if I ever buy more.