I picked up some clays from ebay a little while ago. Clays are a bit different to smoke, but I'm always up for a novelty. Here's the "before" picture:



I picked up some aniline dye earlier this year with the intention of colorizing some briars, which I haven't done yet, but I thought, why not add some color to a clay?
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This one's yellow - the color in the pic is a little distorted. I shined it up just a bit with carnuba as well, not sure if you can see that in the pics.

I did an earlier one in yellow, and it worked, but the yellow bled off a little onto my lips (the absorbing properties of clay work both ways). A couple other things I find a little off-putting about clays is that they're kind of gritty on the teeth and the clay pulls moisture out of your lips, causing them to adhere slightly until you get the end sufficiently saturated with spit. There's got to be a better way, I thought.



So I coated the mouth end with paraffin - about 2". That solved the first and third problems, but not the second - still feels a little gritty.



Anyway, fun little project. I've got some other colors and plenty of clay pipes to work with. I'll post pics as I proceed.