CiM: Messy Color™ Ming, An opal cobalt blue.

Messy Color™ Ming

511562 - Sold Out

An opal cobalt blue.

Click here to view Ming Uniques

See how Ming fits into the 104 color palette. Read more and see more comparison beads including etched versions at Lush Blogs. – Julie Fountain

Click here for other interesting Ming discoveries.

Sue Stewart

Pat O'Brien

Chris Trienens

Carol Oliver

Genea Crivello

Patricia Frantz

CiM Tester Feedback

We asked our testers to compare Ming [an opal] and Cornflower [an opaque] to Italian lapis.

"I have used both Ming & Cornflower cannot tell the difference between the two except in price. The Ming is pricier and that would push me to the Cornflower. I think the colors are more consistent than the Italian glasses and don’t show the variation in batches that I see with the Italians." – Chris Haussler

"I don't think you can compare them to each other as one is opaque and one opal. Both are different to Lapis in my opinion. I LOVED Ming, I loved its opalness - and when I put it with silver glasses it got a lovely secondary fuming. Cornflower is more vibrant than Lapis." – Claire Morris

"I don’t have a preference for either Ming or Cornflower. I’ll always reach for French Blue instead. It’s the best!" – Donna Dorman

"I know a lot of people are afraid of opals like Ming, but Messy opals are a different beast to me, so much less shocky and user friendly compared to Italian opals. Cornflower is almost exactly the same as med. Lapis, but med. Lapis became so shocky. Even though med. Lapis was a favorite of mine, I stopped buying it." – Elasia

"Ming is closest in color to Effetre Lt Lapis, but is not as opaque." – Elizabeth Long

"Ming and Cornflower are so alike that I couldn’t tell them apart. Both seemed to work about the same." – Jan Whitesel-Keeton

"I prefer Cornflower, as it is lower priced than Ming. Both are brighter and crisper than the Italian lapis." – Kathy Coon

"Both melted very nicely, but Cornflower seems to be a tiny bit stiffer than Ming. The spacers I made looked almost identical. You can see the tiniest bit of cloudiness in the Ming, but only if you look for it. To me, Ming doesn’t have that same inner 'glow' as your other opals like Kryptonite." – Lori Bergmann

"I prefer Ming as it didn’t get splotchy when pressed in a brass press." – Pat O'Brien

"For me, I do like the semi-opaque quality of Ming. It's a very pure medium lapis color that catches the light in a unique way. It's somewhere in between Cornflower and French Blue. Cornflower is very similar to the Italian Lapis glass, same density and hue, and for me they are interchangeable." – Renee Wiggins

"We already have multiple opaque lapis hues similar to Cornflower to select from. But Ming can be diluted down to produce milky hues / color ranges in a unique opal. It is different from anything else out there." – Starleen Colon

"I don’t think that you can compare either Ming or Cornflower to Effetre Lapis. Both are much more vibrant than Lapis." – Sue Stewart

Special thanks to Genea Crivello-Knable & Leslie Anne Bitgood for providing the photos in this section.

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.

Murrini recipe: Ming center core Effetre Antique Green, 1 wrap Ming, 1 wrap Effetre Antique Green, 3 wraps Val Cox Groovy Swirl frit, 3 layers Stripes: 8 lines Mint Chip 1-2mm ,8 lines Cornflower 1-2 mm, alternating. Check out Rachel's tutorial Murrini Simplified Vol. II Frit and Reactive Glass.

– Rachel Childers

"This is Ming, with Clio on top, reduced. You see some of the reddishness of the Clio shining thru, and the Ming is a distinctly different colour, presumably from the fuming." Read more at DragonJools blog.

– Dwyn Tomlinson

"Some of the redeeming features of Ming are how interestingly it reacts with other colours, and how it can be applied in a thin layer and lose some of its crazy brightness in ways that just aren't possible with other blues of similar hue. The reactions that are possible with Ming are pretty interesting, and I haven't ever seen some of them before which was kind've thrilling." Read more at Melanie's blog.

– Melanie Graham

“Out of the nine Messy opals I tested, the four opals that opacified were Ming, Poison Apple, Electric Avenue and Kryptonite.” Read more about keeping opal glass translucent at the Frantz Art Glass blog.

– Patricia Frantz

"The darker blue dots are Ming; black and white are Effetre I think. There was an interesting reaction with the black- it turned to a metallic gray line where it met Ming."

– Maija-Leena Autio

"This is a slightly translucent, bright, delirious, burning blue. It belongs more in the cobalt family than these initial pictures indicate - this is a shade of blue that the camera is just not happy about capturing - or the computer monitor is not so capable of rendering." Read more at DragonJools blog.

– Dwyn Tomlinson

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

– Julie Fountain

"I am very intriqued by the potential for interesting effects with the Cornflower. But the slight translucency of the Ming is always appealing. And the Effetre Lapis is darker - more Lapis like." Read more comparison between the three colors at DragonJools blog.

– Dwyn Tomlinson