Selling Jewellery After Covid & Secrets Of Pearls
24th May 2020
Stay safe! We’re hoping bead fairs will resume Mid-June – for bookings click 2020 Bead Fairs.
The new MrBead shop is live and doing well. The old stores continues to operate alongside. However, most discount vouchers are ONLY for the new shop.
We’ve already listed over 80 new semi precious beads in the new shop – see at New Beads. And as no shows: there’ll be many more coming soon!
Content:
Selling Jewellery After Covid Trend
New MrBead Shop
The Secrets Of Pearls
Knotting a Pearl Necklace
How To Tell Real From Fake Pearls
How To Use The New MrBead Shop
Summer Bead Fairs
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Our New MrBead Shop: https://mrbeadshop.com
£5 (about US$6) Off Anything From MrBead
Try the new shop with £5 off orders over £20. Shipping is free too on orders over £30 – under this UK P&P is just £2.50, from £4.99 international. Can only be used at the NEW shop, & only once!
To get the discount Key PEARLS at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 29th May 2020. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.
Selling Jewellery After Covid
Changing trends will be accelerated by the lockdown. Jewellery sellers must identify these early and focus towards them. Jewellery consumers will:
- Buy more online.
- Have a desire to recycle, eliminate waste, and preserve resources.
- Pay by card rather than cash.
- Travel less distance.
I’m sure there are many other trends, use your imagination and foresight. In Hong Kong, usually ahead of global change, consumers favour cheap throw-away: clothes and jewellery. However, there remains a market for high-quality expensive items too.
Keep Communication With Customers Open
During these dormant times, it’s important to continue communicating with customers. Don’t let them forget you! Keep marketing and advertising. Best to focus on your best clients – these represent 80% of your profit. Spreading yourself too thin is less effective.
Selling Jewellery After Lockdown
Jewellery is purchased to celebrate, show love, and to feel better. Consumers need a positive sentiment. The only way to sell during these hard time is by emotional motivation.
People are more keen now to express their love to their dearest. This is clear in all times of crisis where engagements increase. So focus your marketing on this theme of love and family.
Consumers will also buy jewellery to uplift themselves: a reward for lockdown restrictions. Once they’re free to go out with others, they’ll be keen to show off new clothes and jewellery.
Lockdown isn’t a permanent state of affairs – although serious, it’s only a temporary crisis. Everything will revert back to normal. And when people feel secure and free: they’ll spend more!
Most people will have free money to spend. While furloughed, they’re not going to restaurants, shops, pubs and holidays. And even those with little income will be keen to reward themselves – that’s why the poorest never skimp on their mobile phone or TV. Don’t believe media gloom.
Prepare For The Rush!
So you need to be ready with lots of new jewellery to offer. Because once things are back to normal, it’ll be mad! People will appreciate their freedoms more. Use your free time to make more now while you can – then when possible, use the time selling.
Benefits Of New MrBead Shop
I’ve tried to build the new MrBead shop towards customer needs. With a dramatic ease in finding specific beads by:
- Greatly improved search facility with image as well as description
- Choose by colour and size, as well as stone and shape
- Wish list facility where you can keep items you like – to return to later to edit or buy
- Compare multiple items together
- Select items by price or order listed
- Much faster checkout – especially if you have created an account with no-hassle credit card of PayPal payment.
- Simplified transparent shipping prices – so no surprises Improved, rewritten gemstone properties
- New section to help jewellery making
- Even larger range of semi precious beads
- Easy fast question facility with each individual listing Mobile friendly shop so you can easily order with your phone – even if you don’t have email (confirmations by text)
- Many new beads – over 80 this month alone. And many more to add from our 700km shipment just arrived, and no shows to sell at!
To go to the new shop click: MrBeadShop.com
If you had an account at the old shop, you’ll need to make another at the new store – this only takes a few minutes and will save you time in the future. For instructions on using the new shop, scroll down to the end of this newsletter or click here.
If you’ve seen the new shop, I’d really appreciate you taking my fast 10 simple question survey at: New MrBead Shop Survey.
THE SECRETS OF PEARLS
Pearls Are For June
Pearl Jewellery Sells!
If you want to make quality, impressive jewellery that everyone appreciates, then go for pearls. If you want to make quality, impressive jewellery that everyone appreciates, then go for pearls. Pearl is the gemstone for June.
Pearls are expected to be expensive and in short supply
The reason is that people understand pearls are natural. However, since the 1950s, natural pearls have been cultivated by man – making them much cheaper to buy. This means that including them in jewellery, you will make you even more profit!
The pearl is the queen of gems and the gem of queens
What are Cultured Pearls?
The least expensive cultured pearls today rival the most expensive natural pearls ever found. Cultured freshwater pearls occur in mussels for the same reason saltwater pearls occur in oysters.
Foreign material inside a mussel can’t be expelled. To reduce irritation, the mollusk coats the intruder with the same secretion it uses for shell-building, nacre. To cultivate a pearl, farmers slit the mussel and insert small pieces of live tissue from another mussel.
The ancient Chinese practiced this technique, but the first real cultured freshwater pearls originated from Japan in the 1930’s.Japanese farmers by Lake Biwa achieved natural colours previously unseen in saltwater pearls.
However, water pollution today has virtually destroyed pearl production there.
China now has the resources that Japan lacks: many large lakes, rivers, and a low-cost work force. China has now revolutionized pearling – shapes, lustre, and colours of Chinese pearls now surpass Biwa quality.
Copying the Japanese to improve off-white and mottling, China uses a mild bleach, bright lights, and heat. Natural freshwater pearls are usually odd shapes. So for more roundness, they reshape rejected pearls into spheres, and then nucleate mussels with them.
Freshwater pearls are popular for their colours: white, silvery-white, pink, red, copper, brown, lavender, purple, green, blue, and yellow.
The most desirable are the pastel pinks, roses, lavenders, and purples. Natural colour comes from the mussel species and water quality – with pearls taking the colour of the shell in which they form. However, permanent dyes are used today for most saturated colours.
The Best Pearls
Good pearls have thick overlapping layers of nacre. This can be tested by viewing its “lustre”. Roll the pearl with a pen in bright light – the best pearls will reflect the pen more.
A large pearl is only more valuable if it’s the same quality as a smaller one – the rounder the better. Being an organic gem, grooves, pits, or dents are expected.
What is Mother-of-Pearl?
The shining, playful, reflected light of mother-of-pearl has attracted attention since ancient times.
From then, different technology has turned mother-of-pearl into many uses, apart from jewellery. Today, it’s dyed every colour under the sun – creating attractive jewellery at affordable prices.
The mollusk forms mother-of-pearl as a protective shell. Like the pearl it’s a secretion of the mantle, composed of alternate layers of calcium carbonate and conchiolin. Among the chief sources are pearl oysters from the tropical seas.
See our Mother of Pearl Beads
Glass Pearls
As the name, these are coated glass to look like the best quality pearls possible. Any pearl that is a perfect round shape without any grooving, will either cost thousands of pounds or made of glass!
However, glass pearls are fantastic value for money and have a big place making affordable fashion jewellery. To see our colourful range of glass pearls at under £1.25 a string, click here.
Matching Pearls
Matching pearls isn’t easy, but is important when planning jewellery. It’s an art in itself, requiring a sharp eye, excellent judgment, and experience. Try to buy all the pearls for a project at the same time, as later batches may not match your original purchase. When balancing pearls for jewellery, you need to consider:
- How the pearls blend together in colour, shape, lustre, size and surface perfection.
- How smooth the size increase is of pearls in graduated strands.
- If a necklace is part of a set, all of its pearls on earrings, bracelets or whatever, must match. However, don’t put too much attention perfectly matching against other factors.
See All Our Pears At: Pearl Beads
Knotting a Pearl Necklace
If you look closely, you’ll see tiny knots in between each pearl on a good necklace. This prevents the pearls rubbing against each other – and if the necklace breaks, beads won’t go flying. Knotting also makes the necklace drape nicely and adds length so you need less pearls.
Pearls should be restrung every few years, depending on wear and exposure to hair spray, perfume, body oils, lotions, moisture, and perspiration. This weakens the silk and cause a potential break point for the strand.
There’s a few ways to knot a beaded necklace, but this is the easiest for beginners. First choose a type of cord. There are two types for knotting: silk and nylon. Silk is traditional, however many complain that it snags and frays. Nylon cord can also be used. Both come in a variety of colours.
They can be purchased on small cards with about 6 feet of cord and a needle attached – or for the serious knotter, larger spools can be purchased with separate needles. They also come in different sizes. The thicker cord is used for larger beads.
For beginner’s technique, two strands are put through each bead, so a thinner size is needed. For 6mm beads, use size 2 for this technique, and try to match the colour of the cord with the colour of the beads.
A popular way to start any beaded necklace is with bead tips. The only difference here is that two strands of the cord are inserted through the bead tip instead of one. This is easier than using one strand of cord, and the results look almost the same.
- Once the necklace is started, string on a bead, and make an over hand knot.
- Make the knot tight so it’s snug up against the bead.
- Continue to do this: string a bead, make an over hand knot, string a bead, make an over hand knot.
- Finish the necklace as you would any beaded necklace whether it’s knotted or not.
How to Tell Real from Fake Pearls
You can identify fake pearls by what they’re called: simulated, faux, glass, plastic, resin, artificial, manmade. Genuine pearls will be called natural, cultured, freshwater, or sea.
Real pearls may come from either freshwater or saltwater, and it’s very difficult to tell which – both form in a variety of molluscs (not just oysters). However, all grow the same way in baroque shapes as well as round. There are also shell pearls and genuine pearls which have been artificially coated or dyed. Before you deal in pearls, you need to know if they’re natural or not.
Professional Testing
If you want to buy expensive pearls that are perfectly matched, a gemmologist certificate (from one of your choice) is essential. It costs about £100 to have pearls tested, as opposed to several-thousands for the type that warrant the test. An x-ray will show variations in density the inside of the pearl, a parasite that might have caused the formation of a natural pearl, and the characteristic shapes of drill holes.
The Tooth Test
Rub the surface of the pearl over your teeth – a real pearl feels gritty, while a faux pearl feels smooth. Real pearls are made up of layers of nacre that are deposited like sand on a beach. The slight waves in the nacre give a bumpy feeling against the teeth. However, if the pearls are dyed, the dye can fill in natural depressions.
Close Inspection
Look at the pearls in bright light. Unless they’re very expensive, genuine pearl There will be slight variations in shape, size and colour – along with grooves in their nacre, bumps, ridges, or pits. Otherwise, or if any are a perfect sphere or have a grainy smoothness: they’re suspect.
Cutting a pearl open will reveal its true nature. Natural pearls are comprised of many layers of nacre. Cultured pearls have a mother-of-pearl shell core covered with a thin layer of nacre. Fake pearls have a core with one or more layers of coating which tends to flake away on cutting.
Pearl Holes
Examine drill holes to see the nacre layers and what lies beneath. Real pearls are usually drilled from both sides to meet in the middle – making the hole appear wider at the outside edge of the pearl. Holes of fake pearls are usually strait and are more likely to be larger all the way through. The nacre of fake pearls near the drill holes, flakes away easier than on a natural pearls. And cheap real pearls may not be drilled straight, making a necklace hang badly, unless it’s knotted.
Other Clues
Sometimes fakes are made to look irregular, and glass pearls often have flattened ends. Genuine pearls warm to the skin faster than glass pearls – while plastic pearls tend to feel warm right away.
Real pearls are heavier for their size than any fakes. Other signs are in the pearl’s surroundings. A genuine pearl necklace is more likely to be knotted and set in gold, silver, or platinum. You can examine clasps for stamps in the metal. The clasp should have a safety mechanism, like a fish hook. No one would use insecure clasps on good pearls.
Faux Pearls
Faux pearls, although manmade, are not necessarily a cheap substitute to the real thing. They have genuine beauty of their own, looking “almost” the same as natural pearls costing thousands of dollars. They’re created by coating the outside of glass or plastic beads with essence d’orient or pearl powder. This is then dipped into various solutions of pearl film to simulate the lustre of a natural pearl.
Pearl Folk Lore
There are an almost infinite number of myths and folk lore associated with pearls. Many pearl web sites included their own version of pearl myths. Here are a few that I found:
- Pearls have the powers of love, money, protection, and luck.
- Pearls were dedicated by the Romans to Isis and they were worn to obtain her favour.
- In early Chinese myths, pearls fell from the sky when dragons fought among the clouds.
Pearl Care
Special care is needed for pearls. Since they are naturally porous, it’s important to make sure they do not absorb cologne, hair spray, lotions, or make up. Although oils from your skin help keep the pearls from drying out. Pearl jewellery is often purchased in a silk or felt pouch. You should keep the pearls in this to prevent scratches. To clean pearls, don’t use any jewellery cleaners – wipe gently with a damp cloth.
How To Use The New MrBead Shop
I hope you like the new shop: https://mrbeadshop.com. We started work on it in January, and it’s take hundreds of hours – thanks to the lockdown it’s ready months early!
Please Register
For our regulars, I’m sorry to say you need to create an account again (as data from the old shop can’t be transferred). However, you only need to do once, it only takes a couple of minutes, and will save you a lot of time on future orders. Just click the 
icon at top right of the shop, then Continue to register as a new customer. You’ll then be able to use the Wish List to store anything you like for later.
Simplified Shipping
Everyone hates paying shipping! So for transparency, the new shop has a flat rate of £2.50 for UK orders under £30, then FREE. No need for any code. International shipping starts from £4.99 with a maximum of just £14 – full details here.
New Order Facilities
- Enhanced Search at top left – key description or item number.
- All Categories Page – Menu of all items.
- On Category Page: View as Grid default, or change to view as List. Plus sort by name order, price, or date listed.
- Choose by Shape, Colour, Size, or other ways.
- Add to Wish List (click little heart icon) – you must make an account first, then login.
- Easily ask Question about a product on Product Page.
- Add to Compare – you can compare any number of items side-by-side.
- No computer or email? No problem! You can order with a smartphone and checkout with your mobile phone number. The shop will send you a SMS tex on order and when mailed.
Key Controls
- Customer Login Click box at top right.
- Home Button
at top left of every page – takes back to Front Page. - Shopping Cart / Basket
at top right – Mouseover shows content & total price.
Use With Smartphone
- Browse and add beads to your wishlist while relaxing or travelling.
- Order beads easily on the go. It’s very fast with a smartphone, especially if you have an account and login.
- Browse on the phone: order on the PC later.
- Full details at How To Order Beads By Smartphone.
If you’ve seen the new shop, I’d really appreciate you taking my fast 10 simple question survey at: New MrBead Shop Survey.
Summer Bead Fairs
We’re hoping the Norwich show can go ahead Mid-June – but your safety is paramount, so it depends on what’s advised. If necessary, we can delay the fair by a month or two.
Even then, we’ll limit the number in the hall at any one time, and issue everyone with free masks and gloves. Norwich is actually the safest place in the country, but those outside the city may not be allowed to travel.
However, it’s very-likely our Cornish Bead Fair at Probis Village Hall will go ahead on time, 5th July. It’s also a very safe area in the middle of the Cornish countryside.
15-Years of MrBead Newsletters
2005 to 2020 
The MrBead Newsletter started April 2005, so April 2020 is the 15th full year of publication. To see the past newsletters click here. I hope some of these will inspire you to make more jewellery.
To see all the original old newsletters click here.
To sign-up for the free newsletters click http://www.mrbead.com/beadnewsletter.htm.
£5 (about US$6) Off Anything From MrBead
Try the new shop with £5 off orders over £20. Shipping is free too on orders over £30 – under this UK P&P is just £2.50, from £4.99 international. Can only be used at the NEW shop, & only once!
To get the discount Key PEARLS at checkout now, as offer ends Friday 29th May 2020. Use at https://mrbeadshop.com.
NEW MRBEAD SHOP: HTTPS://MRBEADSHOP.COM
Always Free Post on UK Orders Over £30!
For free UK shipping from our bead store enter FREEPOST at the checkout at http://www.MrBead.co.uk
The new MrBead Shop will automatically take off shipping on UK orders over £30.
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See our beads at MrBead.co.uk or MrBead.com