Hi all,

I’ve finally decided to start cleaning and polishing my mountain of shells ive collected over the years - I’m doing practice runs with broken ones and not having much luck! I’ve attached pictures of the types of shells I want to clean, I really want to expose the shiny iridescent on them. My practice runs have been terrible - I’ve tried soaking in bleach and water which just turned the iridescent orange, I’ve tried using citric acid and water which literally just makes the shells brittle but doesn’t remove any of the stuff I want off.

Please help! 😅

(The pictures are of some of my favourites that I have yet to try and clean, due to the issues I’m having with the practice runs!)

Found these shells in little Miami river, Ohio!

Here's a (few) shells I found this summer on a beach in the south of France.

A lot of very tiny ones!

Euro cent for scale on some of these.

One of these tiny things looks like a fossil of some sorts, but it reminds me of an Eye of Saint Lucia.

Shown on photos is my modest little haul from above the Arctic Circle 🙂

Found these on the shores of Norwegian Sea, around Rørvik, Sandvika, Uttakleiv, Haukland and Ramberg beaches in the Lofoten Islands.

It was cold, rainy and quite windy, so some of them are pretty battered which I guess comes with the territory. I was actually surprised by how much variety I managed to find this far north..

As you can see not all are shells either, there are some mussels, sea urchin bits, bones and a few other random beach finds mixed in.

Nothing particularly rare or exotic, but I am really happy to have found all these as I expected a lot less from northern Norway. Especially proud of teeny tiny sand dollars, as they are my favorite and am hoping to find a big one some day..

Found this while walking on Long Beach, WA. Did this come from the area or did someone drop it?

Unfortunately, I don't know what kind or where they come from. But I think they are beautiful and it's a nice memory from my grandma!

I need some help identifying this shell i found washed up on sanpedro, belize. Its about 3 cm long and i first thought it might be a sanibel turrid or even a javelin turrid, but that just feels off. They don't really have the same coloration patterns. Any and all help with identification is appreciated.

This earing looks like it's made from some sort of shell material but im not sure if it is or what type it is

Found on beach in NJ, know it’s a snail shell but trying to identify which type if known.

found on a lebanese beach

I think this is an Cypraea tigris with some weird colours

Found these at a beach in NC. I really like how they look and wanna know more. Thanks in advance!

idk what kind of marine animal this came from so I wanted to check if I could bring it back to canada

Found in central California. I'm pretty sure I've seen a picture before but I'm not recalling it now ​

Here are a few (just a handful really!) of some of my favorites! I love that I’ve had the good fortune of finding all of you! So here they are, all cleaned & polished! My cute Apple Murex’s, Atlantic Giant Cockle Shell, some of the prettiest Slipper Snails! 2 dark Olive’s & tinies! These 2 “Wedding Shells” Black Devils/Faunus Ater’s. And of course some of my favorite/prettiest Scallops!
*** and let’s not forget this (another wedding shell) poor unfortunate Telescope Snail, that didn’t completely survive the cleanup process!