I’ve been looking around lately at plastic beads and am intrigued by Lucite. It’s my understanding that Lucite was popularized in the 1930s by DuPont as an alternative to Bakelite. But unlike Bakelite, Lucite is remarkably lightweight and much less expensive.
Beadin’ Path, beadinpath.com carries brightly colored, retro beads and I love the shapes of the beads at Chelsea’s Beads, chelseasbeads.com. I decided to look a bit on line. I especially like the dark chartreuse frosted German Lucite flower beads I saw at Bonkers For Beads, bonkersforbeads.com. I don't believe these are old beads and they were out of stock. But they had other colors in stock. When I was trolling around, many of the Lucite beads I found were vintage. At vintagecrystalbeads.com I spotted cornflower blue trumpet flower beads that I thought would make lovely earrings. Fire & Fibers, fireandfibers.com carries flower mixes. The pink and apricot mix looked divine and the yellow daffodil flowers were unique. Vintage Baubles, an etsy.com shop, has a funky assortment of vintage beads and findings including some vintage Lucite. Many of the pieces were made in the 1950s in Japan.
Lucite reproductions are also available. Reproductions are usually less expensive than true vintage, but like the beads at Bonkers, very pretty none the less. If you know of any shops or sites that carry Lucite beads, drop me a line. I’d enjoy hearing from you.