How to Wash Your Murano Glass Beads – Why Soap it best.
We have been talking with our customers about concerns that our beads come from Italy, specifically Venice, Italy.
But actually the concern relates to any beads handled by anyone in these days of the coronavirus. And this is a good safety for most everything you buy as everything is touched by humans somewhere along the production and packaging process.
So we did a little research and a couple of customers gave us some suggestions. My photo shows Joy, but I am not recommending any particular brand, it is just what we had in the kitchen.
Our glass beads are like the glass in your kitchen cupboards, they sparkle when washed and thoroughly rinsed. A word of caution for the blown beads which are hollow, be sure to shake the water out of them and leave them to dry with the holes vertically on a towel. This I learned long ago as the water drops left in the hollow beads will show through.
You can use bleach on all our beads, except the ones with exterior gold, white gold or silver foil. The bleach will attack the metals.
National Geographic has an article as did many other news outlets on how to wash hands and specifically why soap is the best choice. It has to do with the structure of the virus and the oils in soaps.
Since I am not a scientist, here are a couple of articles and a quick search of the web should give you more confidence or a different method which you prefer.
National GeographicThe New York TimesScience Focus
As a side note, I am happy to report that as of today in Murano there is still not one death from the virus. As naturally isolated community, the isolation has been good for them. So when the tourist stopped arriving approximately 4 weeks ago, the arrival of any virus from exterior sources became less a possibility. There are, of course, still vaporetti plowing the canals as it is their only means of transportation to get to their doctor appointments, shopping for supplies or taking care of aging relatives. Small transport barges continue to bring in the supplies for the main grocery store on the island. Locals are delivering supplies to their neighbors who are older or at a greater risk.