UK mums turn breast milk into elegant jewellery

Breastmilk is being turned into jewellery by two mumtrepreneurs,The unusual material resembles birthstones after being crystalised in a kitchen to be sold by company Boob Bling.

Mum-of-two Lauren Devine and mum-of-one Victoria Bradley, both aged 37, find many of their customers are men wanting to get a piece of sentimental jewellery made for their wife or girlfriend.According to an interview with the Daily Record.

It took a year to come up with a formula for how to preserve breastmilk, and they are receiving around 20 orders a month for rings, necklaces, and earrings, after being sent five millilitres of their breastmilk to work with.

The elegant jewellery, which is designed not to be 'mumsy' or twee, costs around £180 for sterling silver, and £280 for gold, and each piece takes around two weeks to make.

Lauren quit her corporate job at Lloyds Bank in January 2020, and met Victoria, who works as a business advisor at Edinburgh Napier University, just when lockdown happened, through social media.

The women, from Dalkeith, Midlothian, were both breastfeeding their kids and became realised they had a shared passion for jewellery and began dreaming up a business.

Lauren said: "The customer places an order on the website, then we send them a milk kit.

"They then send us roughly five millilitres of their breastmilk, and we process it using our special formula.

"It turns into a paste, then we set it aside for two weeks until it crystallizes.

"Once that's done we grind it down to a powder, then we make the stone and customise it to the customer's request.

"Our standard stuff is breastmilk jewellery, although we have been asked to turn placenta powder into jewellery and we've had people ask us to convert ashes into jewellery.

"I think when men see how difficult breastfeeding is, they are in awe of how amazing their wives are, so want to get them this as a gift.

"There is nothing on the market that is fun and trendy about breastfeeding.

"We keep it fun and lighthearted as we want people to think of breastfeeding as a natural and normal thing."

Before teaming up with Victoria, Lauren was desperate to spend more time with her kids, Coral, aged five, and Summer, aged three and was mentally struggling with the pressures she was under.

But now she gets to spend all day with her kids and her little girls are fascinated by the jewellery.

Lauren said: "Coral wants to take pictures of all the jewellery when she's older, and Summer, who's only three, just likes playing with shiny stuff."I was brought up around women who loved jewellery.

"My gran had all this amazing jewellery that I used to play with when I was young.

"I wanted to do something creative and something that excited me again. I also wanted to work from home and be closer to my kids.

"I didn't really know what I wanted to do exactly, but I knew it was something to do with jewellery.

"I never ever studied it, so I did some crash courses in jewellery making during this time.