hey guys it's Margaret Texas Scout treasures and in this video we're going to be talking all about bakelite reflect and celluloid so this month is plastics month in our jewelry group on Facebook jewelry lovers and sellers so we are focusing on learning all about bakelite celluloid and lucite so let's get started with bakelite what is bakelite bakelite is a phenolic resin that was invented in 1907 and was used for everything from Radio cases and telephone cases to jewelry and buttons next up we have celluloid celluloid was an earlier plastic started earlier than bakelite and was used in everything from films and movies to jewelry and buttons it is a lot more brittle and definitely more flammable so be careful when you're just in your celluloid if you're using any of the hot methods because it is flammable and then we have lucite lucite another form of plastic it's much harder and very versatile it's in almost every color there's all sorts of styles varieties and everything from transparent to opaque these are a few different types there's a type of lucite that is called confetti lucite that has glittery things in it and this is another type of confetti lucite that's got inclusions that makes it look a bit like amber so let's talk about one of the methods for testing bakelite celluloid and lucite one of the really common methods is the hot water or smell test what you'll do is get a cup of hot water or a bowl and you'll dip your item in and then you will smell it and when you smell it it will give off a very distinctive odor now I'm going to invite in a couple other friends that are not they're not friends a couple other items that are not bakelite lucite or celluloid and the reason I'm having them come over is because I tested them when I was going through the testing methods for all of these and they also are something else and have very distinctive odors so when you find things like this I want you to know what they smell like so you'll be able to identify them properly the first step bakelite when you dip bakelite in the hot water or if you're out and about and you find some you think is bakelite right you can rub it on not your hand rub it on your jeans or something that's going to cause some friction and then you'll smell it and it should smell like formaldehyde take as well does it smell like your science classroom next up is celluloid when you test celluloid with a hot water method it's going to smell like camphor or some people describe it as a vicks vapor rub moth ball kind of smell or even a little vinegary so these ones smells really strongly of camphor or kind of like a mothball smell when I tested them in the hot water method again if you're using say a hot needle method which I don't really recommend that these ones would be really flammable so be careful when you're testing celluloid flammable and then we have our super versatile lucite lee site when you test it with a hot water method shouldn't really smell like anything odorless so there's that okay so my few other pieces of jewelry that I wanted to come on and talk about are these too so this first one was an item that was in my grandmother's collection I remember her telling me that it was really valuable and so I should take care of it but I couldn't remember what it was so when I started testing things out for bakelite I thought you know what let me go get that because it feels plastic it's really lightweight and I'll just test it out so when I did the hot water method on this brace necklace I knew almost immediately what it was because just last month in jewelry lovers and sellers we were talking for one - for less we were talking all about amber and this is a kind of amber it's either lemon or egg yolk amber now when you dip amber in hot water it's going to smell like beep like a forest Eitri sappy kind of smell it's really a rich deep smell so as soon as I dip this smell that Amber smell and new okay I took it to my bathroom turned out the lights took out my UV light and sure enough that put the glowed so yeah if you are interested in learning more about how to test amber I will link video here that I did so definitely grandmother was right this is a valuable necklace because it is again I have to decide if I would consider that lemon or egg yolk amber now the other two items I knew what they were but thought I would go ahead and pull them out and test them because they weren't too dissimilar from my bakelite bracelet it has that tortoiseshell kind of look even though this one's a bit redder this is more of a root beer so that well let me go ahead and pull these out and test them as soon as I dipped these in the hot water they smelt like burning hair so if you come across something that you think might be bakelite they feel plasticky you dip them in that hot water they smell like burning hair you know you're handling tortoiseshell now these were also in my grandmother's collection this is an endangered specie so they are not okay to sell so they will just stay now in my collection so the next testing method for testing bakelite is using Simic roam polish which is a metal polish so be careful when you're using this because it is an abrasive if you're interested in purchasing some Simar chrome polish to have on hand I have a link down in the description box where you can order some from Amazon so when you test bakelite using Simek chrome polish it will come out like a yellow kind of like a dark tobacco yellow color so there's that so first however let's test some celluloid so these items even though I know they're celluloid I want to show you what happens when I test them with the simichrome polish so all you'll need to do is get a little bit on your cotton swab or q-tip cotton-ball whatever you want to use and if you see it's got this kind of pink it's like a bubblegum pink really pastel light color pink like so and then you're going to find a spot that's not too conspicuous where you can Reb you can see I've been practicing over here so it's clean to that that's for sure and you will rub the item and see what color comes up alright so if you can see there was a little bit of a change to it but it just it still looks pink but it's kind of like a dirty kind of a dirty pink now so when I first tested these with the simichrome I tested them on the back because I wanted it to be in a really inconspicuous spot and I tested it with simha chrome before I did the hot water method on these so I got pretty excited because when I tested it with the yellow instead of just showing up nothing it did turn a yellowy color if you can see that a little bit of a yellow color there so at first I thought oh boy these are going to be bakelite but then I realized as I was testing some other items that sometimes the color of the dye will come off on the q-tip so I flipped them over and I decided to test the colored portion on the inside and when I did that you'll see that the kind of bluish brown color of the center is coming off as well so if this was bakelite it would not do that it would not rub the color off onto the simichrome so this is why it's really useful to make sure that you use more than one method when you're checking your items to find out if they're bakelite celluloid or anything and not just relying on the one because you could get a false positive and start selling something that would get you an item not as described if you're selling on eBay or a very unhappy customer if you sold these buttons as bakelite to somebody on Etsy for eBay either way so for the bakelite again you just need a little bit find an inconspicuous spot and it should come out this yellowy kind of like tobacco yellow color on the q-tip there we go like so thanks so much for watching you guys I hope you found this video really helpful if you want to get down there and give it a thumbs up and if you're interested find me on Facebook at Texas Gale treasures and also my jewelry group jewelry lovers and sellers the links are down below and I will talk to you next time thanks so much guys bye you you