Vintage View: The source and maintenance of mother-of-pearl

Sounds as exciting as slurry... “A nacreous, iridescent material deposited on the inside of a shell”. 

This natural nacre is mother-of-pearl, a prized and fascinating ingredient in antique furniture and smalls. Nacre is the same material laid down on a foreign body — like a piece of grit in a mollusc that makes a pearl and it has the same magical, light-splitting lustre.

The nacre, surrounding and protecting the squashy inhabitant of the shell, is deposited in layers in pearl oysters and abalone shells.