"Copper is wonderfully uncooperative. Fortunately, so am I."
The Copperologist
One of the questions I am asked most often is:
"How do you make the turquoise effect on the copper?"
Verdigris isn't paint. It isn't printed, dyed or applied with a brush. It is the result of chemistry – a natural reaction between copper , my Secret Elixir and its environment.
Copper is beautiful, but it is also wonderfully fickle and refuses to stay still.
Anyone who loves copper knows the problem. Left exposed to air, moisture, skin oils and the ordinary business of being worn, copper changes. It dulls. It darkens. It tarnishes. The bright warmth that made you fall in love with it on the day you bought it slowly disappears.
That is simply copper's quirky nature.
This is why The Copperologist was determined to create copper jewellery that will never tarnish. Instead of allowing those changes to happen after you own it, I encourage them to happen here in the workshop. Verdigris is grown using my Secret Elixirs. Colour is coaxed out, or kissed by the flame. Chemistry is watched, nudged, then frozen at precisely the right moment.
Every specimen begins as a sheet of solid copper. It is carefully cleaned, prepared and introduced to one of my closely guarded Secret Elixirs. The recipe remains locked away in the workshop ledger, but its purpose is simple: to encourage the copper to begin its transformation.
Then... I wait.
Usually weeks.
Sometimes months.
Some specimens develop delicate feather-like crystals. Others spread like soft clouds or flowing rivers. Occasionally the copper ignores all expectations and invents something I could never have designed myself. Those are often my favourites.
No two specimens ever react in exactly the same way.
That unpredictability is precisely why every collection is limited. I could prepare two identical sheets of copper, use the same Elixir, place them side by side and still watch them become entirely different discoveries.
Copper, like the most interesting women, has no interest in being a replica. She prefers originality, intrigue and the confidence to do her own thing. I've long since learned that you don't try to make copper behave. You simply create the conditions for her to reveal what she was capable of all along.
Once the verdigris has reached just the right moment, the chemistry is halted. Heat coaxes iridescent colours from the copper beneath before the specimen is permanently sealed beneath glass.
No oxygen.
No continued reaction.
No tarnishing.
The copper cannot continue changing against your skin or slowly dulling in a jewellery box. What you receive is a tiny chemical landscape, preserved exactly as it was discovered.
It's one of the reasons Copperologist specimens seem to find their way into the hands of scientists, engineers, chemists and endlessly curious people. They aren't simply wearing a piece of jewellery—they're wearing a tiny chemical experiment, permanently captured at exactly the right moment. If you're searching for an unusual gift for the scientist in your life, what could be better than giving them a little piece of chemistry to wear?
Perhaps that's what fascinates me most about copper.
No matter how carefully I prepare the experiment, there always comes a point where chemistry takes over and the copper quietly decides its own future.
My job is simply to guide, encourage, recognise the perfect moment... then seal its fate forever.
Yours, in copper and curiosity,
The Copperologist