I found out this interesting company in Shatou, a city in Guangdong Province in China.

The company dedicates to the cultivating technology about freshwater stoned pearl. This technology is the prior in China since 1991 and seems the world too. That made them wining a lot of national awards.

The founder graduated from the University in the area of seawater cultivating and has been dedicating to R&D since 1978.

Their website is www.shaohe.com, but only in Chinese. And I am planning to visit that company possibly in August or November. People there mostly speak dialect. Since I can speak their dialect, it may be more convenience. Besides, I speak English and a bit German.
In case you have interest to know or join, you are welcome.

[Caitlin]

Hi Adalie
I am looking at their pages. It looks like they sell pearl produtcs in tubes and bottles. They are for cosmetic purposes?
then they have those packets and boxes that look just like the ones for Ginsing, so I am imagining those are to take internally?

Then they have some carved MOP in another secton. One of them is a rather cute cherub in solid MoP, but not very detailed. Is that a Chairman Mao MoP medal?

Anyway- this is a whole other side of pearls for me. Please explain some more.

[Caitlin]

I still have dial up out here in dusty old pistol totin' AZ, so pages are still loading from that site.
http://www.shaohe.com/P2_2.htm
This page seems to have cultured bead nucleated pearls. in other words, that cherub isn't carved, it was grown like the most ancient Chinese cultured Buddhas were. In fact, they have some of those, too.

These pearls have remarkable skins- as perfect as plastic. They look like they have bead nuclei- kind of cushion shaped ones. I love those silver colors on the strands at he top. Are all those colors natural? I see they have some black pearls, so I guess they may be dyed.....

What do you know about them? Can you translate the essence of these pages? Write a review of the company for us?

Yes, this company also uses the pearl as healthy consumption and cosmetic purpose.

Because the Ancient Chinese believed that pearl contains more than 20 kinds of natural amino acid, elements, and minerals that are needed for the human body. Wearing the pearl can let the minerals be absorded through skin. And the company uses pearl together with Gingseng,and flowers to produce healthy consumption. For cosmetic purpose, it is more for skin care.

Nuclearted freshwater pearl, Non-nuclearted shaped pearl, and Molding pearl are the major products that they are dedicating to. Pearls are either cultivated with seawater or freshwater cultivating techniques.


The idea of Modling pearl is most fascinating to me. As they said:"The breeding process of the molding pearl is extremely complicated. It needs plentiful organic salts waters without pollution, and selects a special two-year-old mussel as a matrix. Skilled specialists plant the molding pearl to the matrix. The molding pearl will be mature after another three years care".


See the attached link http://www.shaohe.com/p4.htm

This Pearl Garden is also working closely with Universities.
From what I heard, the founder, a member of WPO, is not just developing different cultivating techniques, but also welcome to discuss with anyone who has the idea or interest in pearl technique.

Inside Shaohe Pearl Science and Technology Garden, visitors are not only able to see different types of shell in "Shell Display Corner", but also the process of the manufaturing.

http://www.shaohe.com/p2.htm

[purepearls]

While on the subject of ingesting pearl powder for health reasons (which I find really interesting), I think this topic would make a fascinating research project for someone in the biomedical field.

Using pearl powder as a natural remedy is very popular in Asia. In fact, Kokichi Mikimoto allegedly took a dose of pearl powder daily for good health and a longer life. Unfortunately, there is no hard evidence that states that it works. Many believe that it is wonderful for slowing the aging of skin and strengthening of bones and muscles.

Hi Amanda,

I think he swalled two whole pearls every morning. That would have been a waste, though, because whole pearls are biologically inert. Pearl powder, however, is a calcium source of high bioavailability.

The best effect in terms of both calcium absorption and other benefits including killing all kinds of parasites and dissolving intestinal occlusions would be from food-grade, high-grain-size diatomaceous earth. You can use that stuff for everything from defleaing your dog, to keeping ants out of your kitchen, to stopping mosquitos from breeding anywhere, to deworming your toddler and/or pets, to polishing pearls, kitchen sinks, and gemstones up to a Moh's hardness of 6.5, to treating diarrhea. The stuff kills most viruses, too.

Zeide

[Caitlin]

Hi Zeide
I am a huge diatomaceous earth fan. When we moved out here to this place, there were a lots of pack rat nests under the ungroomed mesquites and thus, a lot of ticks. I used swimming pool diatomaceous earth spinkled in the dog yard several times during the season and voila! all ticks moved far away. I have gone from a daily tick check to only finding 2 so far in 2006. It also worked to move an ant nest out of the dog yard.

My horse friend uses the food grade on her horses and she has no flies. I am serious NO flies. She has 12-14 high quality Crabbit Arabians so she does not mess around with phony remedies.

Now, 2 questions: what do you mean by

food grade, high-grain-size

and where do you get it?

Polishing pearls, tell me about that. Just jiggle them around in a bag full? How about your teeth?
Viruses? Come on!

Hi Caitlin,

You'd be surprised. The pool-filter grade has the wrong particle size for many of the applications of diatomaceous earth and is actually poisonous to humans inasmuch as giving you dust lung on prolonged exposure. It has also been heated so it is a lot less efficaceous for pest control and virus slicing applications. For that it is more absorbent.

The food-grade has a larger particle size that can and is easily filtered out by your nose and mouth mucous. Also, the fact that the food grade is not heated leaves the individual crystals longer and sharper. When I was still in academia, we used food-grade diatomaceous earth for the first swap down in BLIV (prior to the chlorine hosing). I definitely do not want to go back to space-suit work, but having been there, I can guarantee you, the stuff does kill most larger viruses. It is also a great dewormer for the monkeys that are a sad staple of BLIV suites.

You get the stuff in large sacks for next to nothing in ag-feed stores or at http://www.internet-grocer.com/diatome.htm

Zeide

[Caitlin]

Hi Zeide
I am aware that you should not use the pool grade, but I wasn't going to eat it and never saw DE at a local feed store. I'll call around, there are some upscale feed stores on the northside.

I have been Googling it. It is used in tooth paste, but I have not seen it specified for calcium. I do see calcium in the contents label, it has both calcium and magnesium. It can be used as a detoxifier because it is very absorbant.

Hi Adalie
Pearls as calcium- It would certainly be more expensive. Does the pearl powder look pearlescent? That might be fun.

Hi Caitlin,

Yes, pearl powder looks pearlescent. If you grind up a cheap FW strand that you purchased in bulk, you are actually paying less per calcium dose than for a medium-priced, brand-name calcium supplement and you are probably getting far superior bioavailability from your pearl powder.

Zeide

Hi Caithlin & Zeide,

Sorry to tell you that I have also a lot of questions to ask that company. And I certainly can not give any information at this stage in avoid to mislead anyone. I happened to be there only once for a very short time. And somehow their products caught my attention and hope to have a chance to understand their products more by visiting and talking to some responsible people. Seeing is believing. Since there are tricks and chances everywhere in China and I am not an expert. I need to search out the true.

Like Caithlin, I am also curious about their healthy products. And it would be great if the products have quality and saftey certificate in America or EU. Anyone knows how and what is the procedure if those products would like to be tested in America and European Union?