How to Clean Seashells

"When I first began collecting shells, I tried some of the shell book techniques. It seemed that they were actually teaching readers to destroy the natural beauty of shells. Their prolonged boiling literally burned the natural oils out of the shell micropores.,.,.these animal-secreted oils give the shell its sheen or brilliance. Boiling removes the oil.,.,.Harsh chemical cleaning mnethods are also not feasible for cleaning shells. The methods in this book have been tested, refined, and retested until they clean without damaging. These methods cover any category of specimen shell, even the heavily encrusted ones." (from the Introduction) The author has developed and perfected the shell-cleaning techniques described in this book over a period of 55 years. Many of the details were refined while he worked in Panama"