It can be confusing when shopping for the perfect amber jewelry. Well, here it is broken down for you. Please share with your friends!
Unpolished simply means that the beads have not been polished. Polishing the beads makes the beads very pretty and shiny, but also less effective because it traps in the healing oils. So unpolished is the way to go!
Raw meaning uncooked. Here is what I mean by that:
The picture above is of the lemon colored amber. It is a raw and unprocessed color of Baltic amber. The other raw colors are the green and the milky yellow aka white amber.
The other colors of amber: honey, cognac, and coffee aka cherry are almost always 'cooked' to render their colors and are NOT RAW. They begin as the lemon color and the longer they cook, the darker and less effective they become!
(*there are dark colors of amber that are natural but in my experience suppliers heat amber to darken it)
This picture above is of the honey color cooling and the cognac color cooking.
Here is the coffee color cooking. I cook my amber outside on my grill burner because there is a whole lot of smoke from the process as you can see here. It would always set my fire alarms off when I did it in my kitchen. The coffee color is a result of cooking the amber until it is burned! I do not like to use this color except in combination with the raw colors.
The green color of amber is naturally dark and is a great choice for people that are wanting a dark color of amber.
Also, it is good to remember that your jewelry will require cleaning every couple of months. The Baltic amber beads will become coated in body oils and appear polished. The build up will cause the be to become less effective. I clean my jewelry with a toothbrush, warm water, and dish soap. Then I lay it in the sun to dry and draw out inner oils.
*Some people recommend avoiding water with your Baltic amber jewelry, but that is due to the natural cord that it is strung on. I have tried using natural materials (cotton, silk, and hemp) in the past to string my jewelry on, but they always disintegrated or stretched with wear. I only use nylon cord and my jewelry is made to last!!
