Colour in glass is not one technique. It is several, and they produce genuinely different objects. Here is what sits behind each collection.
Colour carried through the glass
In our body-tinted collections — Pontil, Marver and Lume — the colouring agent is in the molten glass itself, not on its surface. Because the tint is a property of the material rather than a coating, its intensity follows the thickness of the wall: deepest where the bowl meets the stem, almost clear at the rim. It cannot scratch off, and it will not fade with washing.
The trade-off is that depth of tint varies from piece to piece and batch to batch. Two glasses of the same colour can read a shade apart. That is characteristic of the process rather than a defect, and it is the reason a body-tinted set never looks machine-matched.
Colour applied to stem, foot or base
In our base-tinted collections — Iris, Poppy, Vesper, Facet and Ember — the bowl is left clear and the colour is applied by hand to the stem, foot or lower body using organic, water-based pigments.
This is a deliberate choice, not a shortcut. A tinted bowl changes how wine looks in the glass; a clear one doesn't. Keeping the colour below the drink line means you get six distinguishable glasses and an honest pour at the same time. Coverage varies slightly between pieces, so the point where the tint fades out is never identical twice.
Cutting and reeding
Vesper's vertical lines and Facet's diamond pattern are cut into the crystal after forming. Cutting does more than decorate: it scatters light through the tint, which is why a cut coloured base reads brighter than the same colour on a flat surface.
Lume's reeding works the opposite way — it is formed in the glass rather than cut into it, then finished by hand with a pearlescent lustre. Because the lustre is hand-applied, no two pieces catch the light in quite the same sequence.
Rims
Every rim in the range is laser-cut and fire-polished. The laser separates the glass cleanly, and the flame re-melts the edge, which both smooths it and hardens it against chipping. It is the single most noticeable difference between good glassware and cheap glassware at the lip.
Materials
All of our glassware is lead-free crystal. The Czech pieces are reinforced with titanium or barium for clarity and strength. The Italian pieces are made from Luxion® crystal in Tuscany, melted in fully electric furnaces.