"I bought a very beautiful bracelet with shungite beads. After wearing it for three weeks, I noticed that the beads had lost their lustre. I treated the bracelet with care and didn't put much strain on it. How did this happen?"
This or something similar is the feedback from shungite users who buy shiny shungite from us and realise after a relatively short time that the surface becomes dull. Of course, we point out in the product description that the polished surfaces of classic shungite can become matt over time. However, this can of course be overlooked when reading before buying. As we send shiny products to our customers, we cannot display images with a matt surface in the product description. For this reason, we would like to explain this topic in more detail here.

The "classic" shungite: All classic shungite stones with a shiny surface are polished. In nature, this mineral only occurs with a matt surface. The mineral is relatively soft, so the polish on the surface does not last long, regardless of whether it is beads, pyramids or cylinders. As soon as moisture is added, the lustre disappears very quickly.
With jewellery, contact with the body is unavoidable, and cylinders or baubles, for example, are often held in the hand, causing the surface to become matt very quickly. Depending on the intensity, a bracelet can lose its lustre after just a few days. In the case of a ball or cylinder that is used for rolling massages, for example, the shine will also disappear after a few weeks.

However, a surface that quickly becomes matt is by no means a disadvantage, not even in jewellery. Even when matt, shungite retains all its properties and presents itself as an extremely attractive stone, even without lustre. With the loss of the polish, the additives, usually pyrite or quartzite, also become more prominent, which is also an indication of the authenticity of the mineral.

Precious shungite: By nature, precious shungite has a shiny surface that retains its lustre even after contact with moisture. However, please note that the stone is relatively soft and its lustre could be lost through mechanical influences. For example, the surface of precious shungite can easily be scratched with a sharp object.

How do I get my shungite to shine again?
It is difficult to make shungite shine again without special technical equipment. 
In the manufacture of shungite products, straight surfaces are polished with water and diamond discs. Special technical devices are used for round surfaces. As shungite consists mainly of carbon, it polishes itself to a large extent. Nevertheless, some polish is often used to achieve a deep lustre, usually silicon carbide, which is neither toxic nor harmful to the environment. 
Smaller straight surfaces could theoretically be polished by yourself, possibly even with an A4 sheet of printer paper. However, this requires a lot of effort and even polished surfaces do not retain their lustre for long. We explain more about this in our YouTube video: 

We deliberately refrain from using strong sealants or polish on shungite products in order to pass them on to our customers as natural as possible.