Shellac - What is it?

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I’m sure you hear about Shellac all the time now. It’s all over the place. When I think of Shellac,  I think Shellac Nails and Shellac Manicures. It was when I stumbled across it in Lenehans and discovered that we sell it in store by the bag that I asked what exactly is Shellac?

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What is Shellac?

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Having now discovered what Shellac actually is I know I won’t be having any more Shellac manicures! Though maybe I shouldn’t be so squeamish.

There is a bug in Asia known as the Lac bug, or the Kerria Lacca to be precise. The female Kerria Lacca bug crawls the trees in India and Thailand and as it goes it secretes a resin that forms a tunnel. It then travels safely through this resin tunnel along the branches of the trees. This resin is the raw form of what we know as Shellac.

The Shellac resin is then scraped from the trees. As you might expect at this stage the resin or secretion does contain other things as the bugs have appetites! The resin needs to be processed. The resin is put in a canvas tube and heated over a fire. This separates the shellac from the bark shavings and bugs by liquefying the shellac.

The Shellac in it’s thick and sticky liquid form is then dried into a thin sheet, broken down into flakes, bagged and sold in shops.

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Uses for Shellac

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Shellac is popularly and has been for a long time used as a wood finish. It is similar to a wax or a varnish. It is used as a dye - a brush on colourant and as it is non-toxic it can be used as a food glaze. Shellac is what gives Jelly Beans their glaze. Before Vinyl was introduced in 1949 gramophone records were pressed from Shellac compounds. Before advances in plastics shellac was used for small mouldings like picture frames and jewellery. At one time it is said that an entire Palace was built out of Shellac. Shellac is used in cycling as the protective and decorative handlebar tape. It is used in dentistry on occasion when creating a custom bite tray. Shellac is even used in some fireworks. Shellac can be used in place of other fuel mixes to create those hard to gain pure Blues and Greens. As mentioned before Shellac is used in cosmetics as a nail treatment. Shellac lasts longer than regular nail polish and is glossier than the regular stuff too!

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Using Shop Bought Shellac

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From the bag of shop bought Shellac Flakes all you need to do is to dissolve these in Ethanol to make liquid Shellac and make it fit for purpose again.

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Production of Shellac

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As Shellac is so popular and so in demand the Lac bugs are now farmed. Millions of people are engaged in the farming of Lac bugs. It has been estimated that between 50,000 - 300,000 bugs are needed to make 1 kilogram of shellac.

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Benefits of Shellac

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The Lac bug spends its day sucking the sap from the tree. They suck the sap and then excrete it. The colour of the resin will therefore depend very much on the tree the bug was feeding from. The colour and type of sap will vary from tree to tree. This has been one of the big benefits of using Shellac as it already has a natural colour to it, whereas if people choose to go for the more modern day option of  a more chemical based product, for example polyurethane, they will have to use a stain in addition.

So although the idea of bug secretion made me squeamish initially, it is beginning to seem a lot more like the natural choice as it began it’s life as the living blood of a tree!