Ever heard the Mitch Hedberg joke about how Pringles used to be a tennis ball company, but one day an accidental shipment of potatoes arrived and the laid back Pringles people said “Fuck it, cut ‘em up!” Turns out, Mitch wasn’t too far off. Potato chips themselves were originally a mistake. A chef, tired of a customer’s complaints of the taters being sliced too thick took them back, sliced them as thin as he could, then fried them and doused them in salt to try to piss off the patron. Instead, a snack food favorite was born… 

It’s not just chips that started out as a mistake though, Post-It Notes, penicillin, and pacemakers too! Even chocolate chip cookies and color-changing fumed glass pipes! Yep, that’s right. We’ve all hit a fumed pipe or bong, right? It all began as a mistake in the humble studio of the legendary artist, Bob Snodgrass. Ol’ Snoddy accidentally dipped a bit of silver in front of his torch while working away one day and boom, or rather *FUME*, a new style of glass art was created.

Fumed glass is as popular as ever these days. When glass artists place precious metals like gold, platinum, and silver in between their torch flame and the glass they are working with, the ultra-high temp of the flame vaporizes the metals, releasing fumes that are then carried by the flame to the glass to make some awesome looking iridescent designs that are often then encased with more clear glass.

Check out this dope spoon pipe from Custom Creations below, available now in our store. This twisted fumed pipe is thick and solid and is accented brilliantly with a sweet millie cluster mib on the side of the bowl.

Though gold and silver are most commonly used, the skill of the artist can pull a killer variety of shades and hues of colors from the metal into the glass. When you hold your new, or sparkling clean, pipe up to a lighter colored background, you will see the transmitted colorful patterns in the glass. As you darken the background, often those patterns “pop” even more giving the effect of the colors actually changing. This is why as a fumed pipe fills with dark resin, people often talk about the newly visible spectrum of color. Unlike more recently popular UV-reactive glass, fumed glass does not actually “change color”, it just reveals more with use. 

Here at The Dab Lab, we have a heady selection of fumed pipes, bongs, bowls and slides, as well as dab rigs and more, all from the artists you love and prices you love too. Show us your before/after color-changing fumed glass pics on Instagram! #thedablab