What is glass made of?

Have you ever wondered what glass actually is and how it is made? So read along here, where we take you on a small guided tour of the world of glass.

In short, glass is molten sand that has solidified without crystallizing. If it was crystallized when it solidified, then we wouldn't be able to see through it properly, so that's an important detail. Glass may well occur naturally in nature, under the extremely hot conditions that you find, for example, around a volcanic eruption. However, it is the man-made glass that we take a closer look at here.

Glass is made of sand and fire
Although there are different recipes for glass, all glass is mainly made from fused quartz, which is our earth's most common mineral, and of which you find a large proportion in sand. Glass is therefore the combination of two of the most basic elements, fire and sand, but it took a while before man understood how to create handmade glass himself.

How is glass made?
Man-made glass was first invented by the Syrians around the year 100. Syria was part of the Roman Empire at the time, so glass was therefore introduced to the Roman elite - the spread of glass to the rest of the world is another story. But how did they, the first people who discovered glass, do it?

It was the technique of glassblowing itself that they discovered, and it is the technique that enables the glassblower to shape, move and color the hot glass. With a tube, the glassblower blew into the hot glass mass and gave it a shape which became permanent when the glass solidified. At the time, only uncolored glass could be produced, but over time the techniques were refined, and the glassblowing art of our time became a reality.

Making glass feels a bit like alchemy
The glassblower's work is delicate and precise, and it requires a fingertip feel for the temperature of the glass and a willingness to be shaped, especially when the glass is thin and details are being worked on. The hot glass is almost like lava, a liquid and fiery mass that moves like a viscous liquid. With the combination of air, movement, color and simple tools, the glassblower now has the opportunity to make and model the glass as he or she wants it.

This is how we make glass at Baltic Sea Glass
In Baltic Sea Glass, we combine the tradition-bound glassblowing technique with a more modern approach, so that we can both meet the demand and at the same time retain the beauty of the craft. Therefore, individual parts of our collections are produced in Poland at a recognized glassblowing factory, where skilled glassblowers mouth-blow our glass products.

If you want to see for yourself and experience the technique up close, you are most welcome in our studio in Gudhjem on Bornholm, where you can get up close to the art of mouth-blown glass. Here, our own glassblowers create the shapes and colors that you find in our variety