Why Your Coloured Glass Fades or Peels

Did anyone have this happen to your custom glassware that the colour on the glassware peels after frequently use, especially in a dishwasher machine? The reason is that the colour is just a thin film of coating on the glass rather than chemical metallic oxides fused into the molten glass during manufacturing. This kind of layer on custom glasses is made of colour spraying or painting, it easily peels off due to frequent dishwasher washing, harsh abrasives, exposure to moisture and UV light. Now we know the reason for the colour fading, how do we tell if our favourite bespoke glasses are colour sprayed or tinted?

 

 

Colour sprayed glassware VS tinted glassware

Before diving in, we need to understand what is colour sprayed glassware and what is tinted glassware. As we mentioned before, colour sprayed glassware is made by applying a thin paint onto the clear glass through a spray gun to change the clear glass into colourful. It's not difficult for us to know that the coating will easily peel or fade over time. The colour coating can be in hundreds and thousands of colours based on the Pantone number according to requirements, and the coating can create varieties of effects, including metallic/iridescent, inside spraying, outside spraying, both inside and outside spraying, translucent spraying, solid spraying, powder spraying, glossy spraying, matte spraying, textured spraying and ombre spraying. All of these coatings offer the glassware a completely eye-catching look. Colour coating is frequently used for custom glass candle holders, wholesale glass liquor and spirit bottles, custom lighting glasses, decoration glasses and bespoke drinking glasses, but we strongly don't recommend applying colour coating to drinking glasses because most of the coating is not 100% food grade and probably harmful to human's health over time, although the glassware suppliers state that they can provide you a food-grade lab test, whatever it's FDA, Pro 65, CE certificated or else. Differ from colour sprayed glassware, the tinted glassware is made by adding 0.4~0.7% metal oxides into the molten glass during production. After fusing in the kiln with high temperature of 1,600℃, the natural colours are formed by chemical reactions between metal oxides and the raw glass materials, hence the colour won't fade or peel forever. Tinted glassware have a lot less colours than colour spraying due to the limited chemical reaction, only green, pink, purple, black, blue, red, amber and smoke grey are available so far. Tinted glassware is with healthy natural colours without any harm and it is greatly used for custom drinking glasses and high end glassware, like custom glass vase, glass candle holder manufacturing.

 

             

     Custom colour sprayed glass process                                          Custom tinted glass manufacturing                                      

 

How to tell between colour sprayed glassware and tinted glassware

There is a very simple way to tell if your custom drinking glass is colour sprayed or tinted without put the glass in a dishwasher, causing no waste. As we know, the colour sprayed glassware is made by a spray gun applying colours on it, so its colour is very even, while the tinted glass has a thicker-coloured base than that on the upper part of the glass, see below picture. Once understanding this, you can easily tell if your glassware is tinted or colour sprayed.

 

 

Why do glassware manufacturers love to spray the glass?

From the above, we know that colour spraying is harmful to human's health, but why there are still lots of glassmakers choose to spray the glass instead of tinting the glass? We can find out the answers from below:

 

• Limited colour availability

Colour sprayed glassware mostly has all kinds of colour while tinted glass only has limited colour options, so manufacturers have to spray the glass in order to get the desired colours.

• Cost

Colour sprayed glassware is a lot cheaper than tinted glass, take a glass candle holder as an example, colour sprayed candle holder takes around US$0.5 with supreme quality while manufacturing the same tinted candle holder is around US$1.5 at least. This is the paramount reason that people go for colour sprayed glassware.

• MOQ

Colour sprayed glassware has a low MOQ and we can do any quantity if the clear glass is off-shelf because the colour is sprayed through a spray gun. Due to chemical reactions, the entire molten glass in the kiln is with the same custom colour and the colour is not suitable to other orders, so the MOQ must be high, from 3,000pcs to 60K due to different production processes.

 

How to prevent your colour sprayed glassware from fading?

If your desired colour is out of the range of tinted colours (green, pink, purple, black, blue, red, amber and smoke grey) , and quantity is small and cannot afford the expensive price, we still recommend choosing colour sprayed glassware, which means discoloration is inevitable, so how do we prevent the colour sprayed glassware from fading as much as possible?

 

• Gentle Cleaning

- Use warm detergents: Avoid harsh detergents.

- Use soft tools like Microfiber cloths or soft sponges: Avoid scouring pads, steel wool and rough paper towels.

- Clean gently: Wipe and wash gently. Don't scrub aggressively.

• Hand Wash only

- Only hand wash and never wash them in the dishwasher.

• Gentle care

- Never banging objects against the colour sprayed glassware.

 

So above all, we are confident to believe that you've known how to tell the colour sprayed colour and tinted glass, and you've known how to protect the coating if you go for a colour sprayed glass. And we also believe that you will get what you paid for and avoid cheating by some glassware suppliers who say their glasses are tinted glasses and charge you high price but ship colour sprayed glasses. Feel free to contact us if you need custom glassware.