Test Results :: Mint Lozenge

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 Mint Lozenge is a light turquoise/blue semi-opaque. It is bluer than CiM Kryptonite (my test results here), and is quite a lot bluer than CiM Sea Foam (my test results here). It is greener than Effetre Sky Blue Opalino.  Mint Lozenge is very transparent when used in a thin layer. Mint Lozenge is the colour I think of when I think 'Robin's Egg' blue.

While Mint Lozenge is unique in terms of its hue, it behaves almost exactly the same way as Kryptonite does with the same basic reactions. It is not as highly reactive as Sea Foam.

Like with Kryptonite, Silver leaf disperses on the surface of Mint Lozenge and develops a crazy greenish yellow haze around it. Not so attractive, but quite interesting.

When the silver leaf is reduced and encased, it has an encased shiny patina under the clear with some ethereal blue halo effect around the silver. This effect is pretty beautiful in person.

Mint Lozenge, like Kryptonite, is a nice base for striking silver glass. Reducing silver glass looks neat on top of it as well, except for that sick green fuming thing. The surface colour of the Mint Lozenge gets very discoloured when silver glass is reduced on top of it.

Mint Lozenge causes separation reactions in Copper Green, Opal Yellow, Ivory and Peace. The reaction is reciprocal, so when you put Mint Lozenge on top of those colours, you get a neat halo effect. These reactions are pretty consistent with the results I get for Kryptonite but are much less dramatic than the reactions I got with the same colours when I tested Sea Foam.

In addition to separating Copper Green, Mint Lozenge also seems to make it want to turn pink around the edges where the two colours come into contact.

I didn't get much of a reaction with Tuxedo, although the Tuxedo sort of thinned out and looks a little blue where I used it over the Mint Lozenge.

This bead has a base of Mint Lozenge over CiM Indigo (test results to come). The Mint Lozenge is pretty transparent in thin layers, but it has a beautiful softening effect.

 

Test Results :: Oliva Nera (Black Olive)

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

Effetre Oliva Nera is an extremely dark, saturated transparent brown. It's so dense, then when used as a solid colour, and even when used over a core of clear, it looks black. It is maybe a little on the pink side of brown, which you can't really see until you put it over something light like Ivory or White. This colour melts beautifully, being of average viscosity. It is not especially prone to boiling, and it is fantastic with silver and silver glass.  The best news? It's pretty cheap, too.

When silver leaf is melted onto the surface of Oliva Nera, it develops into a crust on the surface, and a blueish iridescence develops around its edges. When the leaf is reduced and encased, it looks like a greyish, faintly shiny coating under the clear that has purplish blueish tinges to it.

On top of Oliva Nera, my reducing silver glass got very shiny and developed very nice colours. The TerraNova2 frit was also surprisingly nice (for me) so I am going to surmise that Oliva Nera is sort of a universally nice silver glass base colour.

Oliva Nera is not very reactive with any of the other colours I tested it with.  (please excuse the dust in this picture - I should take another one, but I don't really feel like it)

The only reactions visible are a slight separation of all of the colours (apart from Tuxedo) that I used on top of it, and then some spiky bleeding into Ivory in the bead on the right.

Here's a fun bead with Oliva Nera. I really like this colour.

Test Results :: Marmorin

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

Effetre Marmorin is sort of an odd colour. It looks transparent when it's hot, and it doesn't completely opacify until after it has been annealed. So, it's hard to see what you're doing, and also sort of hard to see where it starts and other colours begin when working with it. Like a lot of Effetre handpulled colours, it can be a little shocky. My rods of Marmorin were 6-7mm, which is a little thicker than I'm really comfortable with, although still pretty slim compared to some of the Lauscha I have in my glass stash.

When I reduced Marmorin, it got perhaps a little shinier and a little more brown, however the slight browning and shine enhancement I see in the beads isn't really evident in the picture.  I was not able to get much of the shiny coppery lustre that was mentioned in the Frantz Newsletter back in 2009, except for where I was also using silver glass frit, and even then it didn't happen all over in any predictable way. Maybe there's a trick to it, or maybe it was a batch thing, and that batch did it but this one does not.

Silver leaf webs and gets a blue tinge to it on top of Marmorin. When the silver leaf is reduced and encased, the reaction is accentuated and has interesting greyish striations to it, as well as the blueish patches.

Marmorin seems to be a decent base for silver glass, but the results I got weren't extraordinary. I think that I understruck the TerraNova2 frit a little, but I probably do that every time. When I do this test, I'm looking for the bases that make the frit pop without me having to do a bunch of extra work. Marmorin is not that colour. The reducing silver glass frit was more exciting, developing interesting shiny outlines and beautiful iridescence. I also got just a hint of coppery colour in the Marmorin around some of the frit, although not consistently or predictably.

Effetre Marmorin has interesting reactions with most of the colours I tested it with. When Marmorin is used on top of Tuxedo, it looks grey and semi-opaque. Nothing very interesting happens when Tuxedo is used on top of Marmorin.

When Marmorin is used over Copper Green, it develops a light line around the dots and stringer lines. When Copper Green is used over Marmorin, the Copper Green separates and develops a grey, shiny outline to the dots and stringer lines.

When Marmorin is used over Opal Yellow, the Opal Yellow separates and develops wide halo bands around the Marmorin dots and stringer lines. When Opal Yellow is used on top of Marmorin, it separates into two separate colours, the edges of the dots and stringer lines turning an orangey-brown. This is bizarre and wonderful :)

When Ivory is used on top of Marmorin, it develops a brown line reaction. When Marmorin is used on top of Ivory, the brown line is fuzzier and wider, and the Marmorin itself turns an opaque grey. This is one of the most interesting reactions of the bunch, because on top of all of the other colours Marmorin looks brown and transparent, but over Ivory it looks way different.

Peace separates on top of Marmorin, but very subtly. On top of Peace, Marmorin thins out and looks transparent but the separation in the Peace is more dramatic, popping up around the Marmorin in wide, white halo bands.

I used Marmorin as the exterior of this window bead.