Is it a pearl or is it Kryptonite?

[KarinK]

Ha, I have a story about a Victoria's secret bra to tell regarding the effects of heavy metals. I can say without a doubt heavy metals pearls would only be for girls with strong nerves.

C'mon Ramona! You can't leave us hanging there. We want the story!

- Karin

[Ramona]

Well, I woke up one morning quite differently than the night before. All the skin on my upper front body looked like it had been burned. After a rush to the computer and a couple of google image searches I could only find one condition that produced similar results: Inflammatory breast cancer. It is a cancer that develops very quickly and kills you. So, I got a bit hysterical. After some calming down time, however, I put 2 and 2 together and remembered I bought this bra on sale. Given that this company sells cheap products and the stories about environmental problems in China, it seemed reasonable that this could be the cause. I went shopping for a higher end product and after two weeks the burns had peeled off and I was fine. Or almost. I still had allergies to any kind of clothing for about 6 months after that. I later discovered there was talk about a class action suit against Victoria's secret regarding heavy metal contamination of their clothing. So, I probably was not the only one. From then on I bought clothes mainly from companies that use eco products. So, I would be a bit wary about pearls with undisclosed treatments from China.

[Narcissa]

Holy D Cup, Batman, that really does sound like a good class action suit. Glad you're ok now.
It did occur to me on first sight that I might not want that kind of pearl in much contact with my skin.

[Nerida]

Can't vouch for the effects of heavy metal from bras or pearls either, but do have to say that I had a very very sick little pet galah (a type of cockatoo) recently from exposure to (not ingestion of) heavy metals... thankfully recovered now, but not without some serious veterinary work!
Jeremy, just wondering what these guys would think was attractive about glow in the dark pearls???? Kitch doesn't even begin to describe it!

[jshepherd]

I think they are just experimenting with different things. There is so much of that going on in China. This particular experiment is a bit bizarre.

[CortezPearls]

I assume the light was your traditional fluorescent light and not UV??? I would guess it could be part of the scheme of injecting substances into the pearl sac in order to make the pearls exhibit unusual colors. It is very interesting to see this effect...in a gory, zombi-like way.

Please do keep us posted on your findings Jeremy!

[jshepherd]

Yes, it was just a traditional fluorescent light.

I'm certain that there is a coating, and it is thick. Under magnification the coating appears to be thick, it almost makes the pearl appear to be a fake. The fingerprint of a pearl isn't visible.

What remains to be seen is if the coating is the only thing that is causing it to glow. I might need to cut it in half. I'll have to get permission for that first, though.

[Marianne]

Reminds me of the Slimer character in Ghost busters.... gak!

[Lagoon Island Pearls]

I'm certain that there is a coating, and it is thick.

Does it glow for minutes, or hours?

[Ramona]

In my opinion it would be a lot easier and cheaper to produce fake glowing pearls. After all the customer who would buy them would probably be more fashion oriented than really interested in pearls.

[jshepherd]

The glow is always there as far as I can tell, but I imagine it fades if left in the dark for a period of time. The intense glow in the photo was only after leaving the pearl under a direct light source for a short while.

Ramona,

I agree. But the fact that they did it with a real pearl is interesting. I don't really see a viable commercial possibility for it, except to pair with a corpse bride costume for Halloween perhaps. But finding new, strange things like this always catches my interest.

[Ramona]

Yes, I agree. And their willingness to experiment with pearls should make any other competitor think.

[judimcc6]

Any more information about the coating on this pearl? Is it not healthy to wear??? I mean, it does look like something nuclear.

[Ingykiz]

Beautiful pearl, but I would be worried to wear a strand of these around my neck, since there is some obvious treatment that has ensued. I would be worried about thyroid cancer or some other gruesome thing. My husband is a pathologist so I have a wild imagination!

[Ramona]

In immunofluorescence imaging we use a number of dyes, mostly Alexa fluor that emit for a long time and can be covalently attached to reactive groups. Lanthanides would be something very stable, but they probably would not emit in the range used here. The easiest may be to substitute Ca2+ for strontium (Sr2+). Strontio-aragonite crystals exist naturally and fluoresce red under 366 nm long wave UV and fluoresce pale yellow under 254 nm short wave UV. Strontium gets easily absorbed through skin. I don't know whether strontium would naturally be unstable and contain radioactive isotopes. It would be interesting to examine the pearl with a Geiger counter.