CiM: Messy Color™ Halong Bay, A milky cobalt blue moonstone.

Messy Color™ Halong Bay

511512 -

A milky cobalt blue moonstone.

Swirled Halong Bay with mixed silver glass stringer. – Carol Oliver

Click here for other interesting Halong Bay discoveries.

Melanie's fairy made with Messy Halong Bay

Melanie Moertel

Messy Halong Bay with ivory & sis, slightly etched

Kaz Baildon

Judith Billig

Laura Sparling

Darlene Collette

Melissa Villadiego

CiM Tester Feedback

Halong Bay is a striking color.

“Halong Bay, Peacock Green and Cirrus are my favorite CiM colours because of the way they can be worked to get the desired amount of opalness or translucency.” – Juliette Mullett

Halong Bay does not etch in the same way as other 104 colors. Celia Friedman's tumble etching recipe for Halong Bay:

"Put your beads, a drop of dishwashing soap, a handful of small glass beads, and a spoonful of silicon carbide grit in a lapidary canister, add enough water to cover that plus a bit more, and tumble for 2-3 hours.

Time and grit rating will determine the finished product. 1000 grit for two hours gives a smooth, subtle frost with a pearly gloss coming through, while 800 or 600 will give rougher results.

The extra beads should be small, and many sources suggest 3-4 mm, but if you are tumbling large-hole beads those will get stuck in them, so I use mostly 6 mm.

Tumbling doesn't texture glass inside grooves or depressions, so unless you like the artistic effect of a partially etched bead, it works best with evenly rounded or perfectly flat beads. Because dimpled hole ends don't etch, I make my tumbling beads with flat ends and dremel down the edges later.

NOTE: once you put silicon grit in a canister you can never, ever use it, or anything you put in it, for polishing metal." – Celia Friedman

Patricia Frantz discusses using Halong Bay or other transparents as encasers.

Join Trudi Doherty's FB group Lampwork Colour Resource Sharing Information for a catalogue of color study.
Claudia Eidenbenz’s "Vetrothek" (glass library) is a great resource for color comparisons.
See Kay Powell’s frit testing samples.
Browse Serena Thomas’ color gallery.
Check out Miriam Steger’s CiM color charts.
Consult Jolene Wolfe's glass testing resource page.

"I made two beads of Peacock Green and Halong Bay. One bead of each color without striking, just formed a bead and put it in the kiln. And another bead of each color struck three times. That is, I cooled the bead until it stopped glowing, then slowly heated it and so on three times. The struck beads are obviously more milky and this glow is very noticeable. It's sooo beautiful!"

– Olga Ivashina

“Testing the old CiM moonstones against the new misty opals. Top row is the moonstones [Halong Bay, Cirrus, and Peacock Green]. Bottom row is the misty opals [Wisteria and Budgerigar]. As you can see when the moonstones are worked longer they are more cloudy than the misty opals. You can see the dichro sparkle much better in the misty opals.”

– Caroline Davis

Halong Bay with 99% fine silver wire. See more at Darlene's blog.

– Darlene Collette

Halong Bay & Lauscha Violet. "It's really amazing the diversity you get when you work with CiM moonstone colors as a catalyst for hand mixing. Halong Bay gives you the same variety of effects as Cirrus, but it adds a touch of blue tint too! Gorgeous! In this set you get a combination of almost opaque, almost transparent, and fully translucent red and blue purples."

– Dana George

"What lovely, lovely glass named after a place I’d love to visit. I didn’t realize that it needed to be struck to get the gorgeous milky, moonstone look…but once I figured that out, I’m a happy camper."

– Gloria Sevey

"These are Halong Bay with a Clio overwrap that has been reduced. The base beads have become somewhat greener with the yellow fuming effect of the reduced Clio." Read more at DragonJools blog.

– Dwyn Tomlinson

Swirled Halong Bay with mixed silver glass stringer.

– Carol Oliver

“Halong Bay does not etch like other 104 colors. Here it was put in etching solution for 20 minutes. You can see the slight variation of the etched bead looking a bit more dull, but not really what I would call a proper etching.”

– Genea Crivello

"On a base of CiM's Halong Bay, shards of silver infused glass, Double Helix's Aurae, was carefully added and reduced to bring the glittery bling to the surface." Read more at Darlene's blog.

– Darlene Collette

See how Halong Bay fits into the 104 color palette. Read more and see more comparison beads including etched versions at Lush Blogs.

– Julie Fountain

"This is a spacer made with Halong Bay by itself. It is a light translucent - by which I mean that it is quite transparent - it takes a fair build-up of it before you loose that translucent, light-transmitting quality." Read more at DragonJools blog.

– Dwyn Tomlinson

"I really like to use these colors [Cirrus, Peacock Green, & Halong Bay] as encasements over intense dichroic scrap beads." For more tips on using dichro from Pat Frantz read here.

– Patricia Frantz