Care For Milk ceramic glaze

Care for Milk project is an attempt to reclaim the way milk used to be valued prior to its mega industrialisation. During her research, designer Ekaterina Semenova explored the effects of different dairy products and waste when used as a glaze on ceramics, which makes the clay both more durable and waterproof.

Overproduction and continuous price drops have seen our appreciation of milk sink to an all-time low. With Care for Milk, Semenova wants to reclaim the value of this characteristic Dutch dairy product. Focusing on waste reduction, she collected leftovers from neighborhood households to experiment with new uses. Taking the advice from old Russian craftsmen, she applied it to ceramics. By dipping earthenware into different dairy products, various shades of silky brown appear after baking.

Depending on the type of milk – raw, low fat of high fat – different brown colours appear. The sugars in the milk caramelise during the process of baking and make the colours appear lighter or darker brown. The more sugars are in the milk, the darker the ceramics become. Combining this knowledge with different temperatures of baking, even more diversity of shades can be archived.