This lovely dress is beaded with jet beads which have turned green. Can it be cleaned to remove the green? How do you prevent this in the future?
Claire, Just wanted to say that is very interesting. I have never seen jet beads (glass or real jet) turn green! How odd. No ideas here on cleaning. Are they perhaps metal beads with paint?
I'm wondering if there was was shimmery stuff on the inside of the beads that shifted to green tones?
Barbara and Maggie, I posted this dress several years ago and someone wrote that this was jet disease. Whatever it is, it makes a lovely dress unwearable. I should explain that the beads haven't turned green but the dress under them has.
If they turned green they have to have cupric content (verdigris oxidation), which would mean they were probably brass beads, maybe painted black? or perhaps black glass beads with printed metallic paint design? Black glass may suffer from glass disease, but that would result in a white powdery substance and the beads breaking off, not a green discolouration.
Maggie, I'll have to get the dress out. I found the photo while transferring files, but I'll work on it. I'm trying to get my photos organized better and there are literally thousands. I also found a detail of a jacket I asked about recently.
