Striped Pink: Episode II – The Pinkening

Remember those Striped Pink beads I made that were more purple than pink? Well, a friend gave me a tip-off that Tuffnell Glass had Striped Pink glass for sale at last weekend's Flame Off. I was all "YES!" and it wasn't listed on their site so I emailed Martin and asked if I could get in on that Striped Pink goodness and by Friday I was the excited owner of ten rods of the stuff.

Except what I stupidly forgot to factor in was Effetre's ever-varying glass production. Those magical glass conjurers work in mysterious ways and there's a reason why odd-lots are odd-lots. They just can't reproduce glass one hundred percent perfectly all the time and I totally understand that; I can't perfectly reproduce beads (one of the reasons I don't do remakes) because this glass malarkey is not an exact science and there are so many variables which make consistent results really difficult to achieve. Some glasses vary from batch to batch. For example, batches of Opal Yellow, EDP and Rubino seem to be affected by what phase the moon was in and what colour pants and socks the Effetre warlocks were wearing on the day the glass was made.

The first thing I noticed about my new Striped Pink was its colour. I only had one rod of it to play with last time and that rod was more purple. The one I got the other day is way more pink.

The newer (to me) Striped Pink is on the left. See? Much pinker.

Clearly these rods were from two different batches. Same basic principle, though. Something EDPish with a core of most-probably-Rubino.

When heated, the pinker rod goes the most gorgeously rich pink with subtle hints of the stunning purple that was present in the rod I used last time.

I made plain spacer beads again; I think you would struggle to do anything else with this glass due to its devitrifying nature. With the previous Striped Pink, I wound the bead, heated it, rounded it up and stuck it in the kiln. With this one, I wound the glass on and the result was a pale grey-pink bead in need of striking. I waited a good few seconds and reheated the bead in the cool part of the flame, working from one hole to the other and then back again, heating out any devit that had occurred, then stuck it in the kiln. The result is something that actually is striped pink.

I ended up with beads that are pale pink around the holes (*Tim from The Office style glance to camera*) blending into purple-pink, with a band of delicious, blushing, almost Barbie pink around their centres.

Pretty, huh? The effect is reminiscent of what you can achieve with Reichenbach Purple Rose, but in a more pink way, if that makes any sense.

So, having Googled about and glass-faffed, I'm assuming that Effetre made more than one batch of Striped Pink 253 and that I've been fortunate enough to play with two versions of it. The version Tuffnell Glass currently has is nothing like the one that I showed you last time. That was much more purple and it did that gorgeous pink-glowing thing. This one makes beads that are more opaque. You do get a hint of the pink glow when held up to strong light but not to the extent that you do with the more purple version.

I'm more than happy to have this pinker Striped Pink 253 in my stashette. It makes gorgeous spacers and I reckon I can feel a bracelet-o-pink coming on.

You can grab some of this Striped Pink for yourself over at Tuffnell Glass.

My previous, more purple Striped Pink posts can be found here and here.