Antique Purple Amethyst Bottles Make Sweet Vases

I've always loved groupings of flowers in old bottles. What fun it was to find these beautiful purple amethyst bottles! And lucky I just have a lot of purple flowers blooming in the garden right now. But really any color flower would look wonderfully cottage chic in these bottles!

Ever wonder how these old antique bottles got their striking color? 

Many glassmakers though the centuries have attempted to produce clear, colorless glass. Impurities, especially iron oxide, often resulted in glass that had a hint of green, bluish green, or light aqua color.

It was in the mid 19^th century that manganese dioxide, popularly called “glassmaker’s soap” began to be used by American glass manufacturers as a decolorizer. By including a small amount of manganese in the melt, they could produce glass that appeared virtually colorless.

An interesting characteristic of colorless glass which contains manganese dioxide is the tendency to turn shades of purple when exposed to the rays of the sun or to other ultra-violet sources.

To achieve this beautiful deep purple color, these bottles have been artificially exposed to very high levels of ultra-violet light. The same light that is used in the food industry for food safety.  Natural sunlight would probably never achieve these amazing shade of amethyst and purple. If it could, it would take decades of continuous sunlight exposure.

 I put together some wonderful groupings of these amethyst bottles for sale at The Pink Rose Cottage. Stop by while your garden is blooming! I'm sure you'll enjoy these as much as I do!