New glass colors- Reichenbach Purple Rose and Raspberry Opal

Hello friends!

I wanted to post this blog for awhile. I don't know if you  remember my photos on facebook when I got my glass, but you will get to see them here if you missed it.

I had the pleasure of picking up some new colors during Olympic Color Rods sale.

If you don't know Reichenbach also makes the Raku glass I am always talking about. It's one of my very favs! Their glass is amazing! Reichenbach glass is created in Germany. Their rods are a wonderful 6mm thickness and the glass is pristine. My rods came pre-cut to, I am guessing 17" or something like that. Just gorgeous, gorgeous glass.

So upon getting new colors I did a quick glass test with them. It's always a good idea to try out a few things with your colors before doing a whole run of beads only to find out there are some compatibility, or color issues.

So before moving on I will tell you what lead to my order. My friend Sarah Moran, of Z-Beads was kind enough to share with me some info about this wonderful sale. She is not only an INCREDIBLE bead maker, but a color guru. She had worked with these colors and suggested them to me as we both LOVE color. Sarah really knows her glass and does a lot of experiments so I totally trust her judgement and knowledge of glass. 

So the new Purple Rose color came about because awhile back their was a company called Zimmerman. They produced glass blowing colors. While taking my class with Andrea Guarino-Slemmons, I was introduced to their amazing glass colors. We used many of their enamels in our class. One of the most amazing colors we used was called "Z-99".  Sadly Mr. Zimmerman passed away and with him he took his glass color formulas with him. His family decided to not only close the business after his passing, but to NOT sell the formulas. BOO! It was a total bummer because I believe they had been in business for a very long time. So the enamels we got in our class were the LAST I would ever have(and still hoard). OCR sold the enamels until all were gone and that was the last of Zimmerman color.

Here is a photo I borrowed from Andrea's shop. She was the last known person to actually have any Z-99 left. In the photo you can see her incredible beads using Z-99.

Oh... my... God! Can you believe that color?! Andrea's beads are just incredible as well! She is not only an incredible bead maker, but a wonderful teacher!

So sad this color is gone :( But.... Reichenbach has come up with a solution! They created "Purple Rose" and this is the closest thing we have to Z-99.

How I test my new glass colors....

First I melt the tip. I always say, you can't judge a rod by it's color. So true! As you can see here the rod color is actually much lighter than the glass works up.

Reichenbach Purple Rose. Mmmmm just look at that deep saturated purple. Pretty fantastic, huh?!

So here are my quick tests from left to right: Bead 1- Base of Messy Clear with a purple rose dot encased with effetre dark lavender. This test showed me if the transparent lavender with the opaque purple would make some nice layering for a flower petal. 

Bead 2- Purple Rose encased with Messy Clear. As yyou can see the bead turns lighter. I did this encasement to see if there was any trouble with cracking so I knew if I could encase the bead. Messy clear is my FIRST pic for clear as it is so stable. I almost never have any problems with cracking when encasing with this glass!

Bead 3- Purple Rose just by it self. I heated and cooled the bead a few times to "strike" the color. You can get a violet, a purply pink violet and a lighter purple. The glass likes to be hot so you want to work it like you would EDP. Over working and excessive cooling will cause devitrification(chalky white matte glass). You can let the bead cool and then go and super heat the glass again to bring out the purple. This was just my quick experiment so I am not sure how many times you can do that before you get yuck glass.

Bead 4- Purple Rose encased in filigrana. Filigrana can be picky and crack when layered over certain glasses so I wanted to do this quick test to see if it work. As you can see, no cracks! 

Opal Raspberry. Yum! What a PINK. In most of our soft glass palette the opaque pinks SUCK. they are very pale, almost white. This is a nice saturated gorgeous pink! Looks just like Bullseye Pink Opal.

Again here are the same tests as above. From left to right: Opal Raspberry encased in Messy clear. No cracking. 

Bead 2- Raspberry Opal plain. As you can see it keeps it's nice saturated color.

Bead 3- Raspberry Opal encased in filigrana. No cracking.

Bead 4- Base of Messy clear with a raspberry opal dot with effetre lavender blue transparent on top. I used that transparent "pink" to enhance the color of opal raspberry. Seems like it will make a nice flower petal.

As you can see these beads are nothing fancy. Their purpose is to do some basic tests so when making beads you know what to expect out of your glass.

I hope you enjoyed my little tests.

xo Genea