Whats the deal with Niihau shell leis

Aloha Yalls,

Jamie at Tunnels beach

I have to break it to you, I live in paradise, truly. I live on Kauai, the oldest, greenest and layed with the most beaches of all Hawaiian islands. Its a small, friendly community. Many famous people end up coming here and getting a piece of it. Its like freaky deeky nice. Here is a picture of my wife, two days ago at Tunnels beach, the same day we got back from Australia. Holly molly, its nice here.

Kahelelani shells

I first came to Kauai in January 2000 and have been coming almost every year since. I was 18 years old and wanted to go swim with the dolphins. That was my great ambition. Got here with $20 in my pockets. What an adventure it was! This is when I was first exposed to the Kahelelani shells.

The Hawaiian name of the so-called Niihau shell is "Kahelelani". The word is said to be meaning "pathway to heaven". The fact is that in Hawaiian, it actually means "spiral-way to heaven". They are an endemic specie of tiny deep water snail that comes in a variety of colors, some very bright color shells. They are one of the oldest known art form in Hawaii.

Niihau with Kauai in the background.

The deal supposedly is, the inhabitant of the Niihau island (the privately own "forbidden"neighbor island of Kauai) would use shells instead of flowers to make garlands because the Niihau island did not have many flowers.

Even though the residents of Kauai had the shell lei making thing going, it is said to originate on Niihau. Here in Hawaii, flowers lei making were and still are used traditionally. 

Niihau shells leis are now a full blown trend on the islands. With this blog I want to help provide accurate and essential information about certifications, appraisals, where to buy, how to recognize good quality work. I see a lot of misinformation out there and after almost 20 years of shell lei making, I've decided to take a step in and tell the story of how it is for the people Kauai and Niihau. Per example, why can someone show up on Kauai and buy a bracelet for $20 at the beach and walk up in a store and see the same size bracelet for $300? ya know... Something is going on here!

To close this for today, here is a lei I recently put together. Thanks for reading. I will update weekly from now on with new information. Mahalo
Jonathan