CiM: Messy Color™ Cornflower, An opaque cobalt blue.

Messy Color™ Cornflower

511571 -

An opaque cobalt blue.

"This bicone was made with a bit more oxygen and marvered with a brass stump shaper instead. The colour is much clearer and has none of that smokey black trail [when using graphite]." Read more at DragonJools blog. – Dwyn Tomlinson

Click here for other interesting Cornflower discoveries.

Darlene Collette

Messy Cornflower & effetre intense blue & white

Kaz Baildon

Gloria Sevey

Melanie Graham

Genea Crivello

Jolene Wolfe

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

"I really like Cornflower because of its opacity. I’m also a blue lover, and the intensity of this color really sings." – Gail Witt

"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

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

Pat Frantz made beads with Cornflower and Vetrofond Tomato Soup.

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.

– Dwyn Tomlinson

"People have reported that Ming and Cornflower are very similar. However, my experience is that these colours are not the same at all. The only thing they really have in common is that they are both a bright, medium blue. If you look at my test results for CiM Ming, you will see that in terms of how the two glasses react with other colours, they are very different in every single test that I performed." Read more at Melanie's blog.

– Melanie Graham

See how Cornflower 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

"These shards have had a double layer of silver and have been blown thicker than the other test shards that I have made. You can see the intense reaction from the Cornflower with the heavy silver infusion in lush green/grey organic patterns and striations. It a wonderful quirk of the making by hand process that I stumbled across this beautiful reaction." Read more at the Kitzbitz Art Glass blog.

– Jolene Wolfe

"Cornflower is a dark, rich blue . . . has the same fabulous working proprieties as the other blues mentioned above. [don’t pit or turn black.]" Read more at the Frantz Art Glass blog.

– Patricia Frantz