What is Frit?

Frit is crushed glass. There are many kinds of frit - from plain glass to glass that reacts differently under different conditions. You can even make your own frit by placing a heated rod or piece of rod in a cold jar (or glass) of water. I have made my own once by heating short, leftover pieces of rods. I really liked the look of it.

Here are a couple of beads that I made using the frit that I made:

Frit comes in different sizes too. You can separate your handmade frit by straining it. I didn't. I find it too much extra work at the moment. Maybe someday I will become more picky.

There are several types of frit I own. I have plain cobalt and plain coral. I also have four colors of reduction frit - amber, green, blue, violet. They can be the colors they say, or by introducing them into a propane rich flame, the metals in the glass will pop.

The above pictures are coral frit, bottles of frit, and iris gold frit



The beads in the above picture all have a black base and are covered in a layer of clear glass. I used green, blue, and purple reduction frit as the colors below the layer of clear. I did not reduce the glass in these beads. However, the following picture has emerald green glass beads with green reduction frit that was reduced. It creates a metalic look to the glass. Reduction frit has metals in the glass which pop when it is reduced.



The last type of frit I have is Raku. This is an interesting frit. There are so many variations. The frit itself looks brown, green and black. But when used in certain ways, blues, pinks, and purples will also emerge.

Raku Frit

The following are beads that were made using raku frit. Depending on the color of the bead's base and how it was applied, there are many variations in the colors that can develop.

There are many brands of frit out there. There are so many ones I don't even know of. I am by no means an expert on any of this. I just thought I would let you know what I am talking about in my shop listings. I hope this helps.



Caroline