4 Best Places to Buy Kandi Beads
Where Most Ravers Get Their Beads
If you won’t enter a rave without an armful of kandi, you aren’t alone. But where do ravers get all of their spectacular beads? There are countless placed around the web where you can get pretty beads that will make great bracelets. Many ravers also shop in brick-and-mortar stores that have craft departments or are devoted to crafts. Beads are available in general merchandise stores like Walmart, Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Target, and they can be found in craft stores like Jo-Ann’s, Michael’s, and Hobby Lobby.
Online, there are even more places to buy your kandi beads. Amazon sells a lot of beads and has third parties selling from their own bead stores on the platform as well. eBay is a great place to find every kind of bead you can imagine. There are sellers who specialize in beads as well as ones who specifically sell kandi, such as Raver’s Delight Kandi Shop. Different sellers have different offerings and price ranges as well as beads of different materials.
Thrift stores, such as Goodwill and The Salvation Army, are another fun place to find beads. Usually, they will already be strung together in interesting bracelets and necklaces, but they are a great place to find unusual beads. Just cut them free from their string and remake your own kandi your own way.
Wish is another place that has countless types of beads being offered. You can find virtually any beads you’re looking for there, but it comes with a downside. The beads are usually in China and can take more than a month or two to arrive.
Etsy is a marketplace much like eBay, and many of the beads to be found on this site are vintage or even handmade. Ponybeadstore.com is another popular one with ravers for its low prices and huge assortment of colors. They also have specialty beads that contain glitter or glow in the dark.
The Problem with Plastic Beads
One of the biggest problems with all of these bead suppliers is that the beads are usually made of plastic. Ravers often choose plastic beads because they are inexpensive and come in a wide variety of colors. However, there are a lot of downsides to plastic beads. Because they are inexpensive and made from plastic, they often don’t last very long. That’s why there are so many of them in the landfills and oceans. And, plastic beads aren’t a rarity in landfills- millions of pounds of them every year are thrown away.
Plastic causes a type of pollution that is highly toxic. Many plastic beads contain arsenic, lead and flame retardants that are carcinogenic. With this toxic soup of chemicals, and so many of them being thrown away, it’s easy to see how damaging they can be to the environment. Some plastic beads are made from toxic electronic waste that has been sent for disposal to China. The trace load of toxic chemicals of a single bead isn’t dangerous, but that’s one bead among millions of pounds of them.
The toxic chemicals in beads that are buried in a landfill can leach out of the plastic and find their way into the groundwater, and this leads to contaminated drinking water. Sometimes, beads end up as litter, and they can directly enter the water through canals and storm drains or simply leeching toxic chemicals into the soil. They also clog up plumbing systems and can block drains. They can also break down and form microplastics that hurt a wide variety of ocean and river life who try to eat them and take in their toxic components.
4 Best Places to Buy Ethically Sourced Beads for Better Kandi
- WomanShopsWorld is an online store that sells a wide range of bead types in a multitude of colors and patterns. The beads sold in this web store are ethically sourced so that they are ethically sold. There are artisans around the world whose wares are in this online store, and everything is sourced and produced both responsibly and ethically. The beads are made to a high-quality standard and aren’t your average, disposable fare. They make great jewelry pieces- including kandi. Being able to flash kandi at the rave is more responsible when it’s done with ethical beads.
- Happy Mango Beads is another online bead store that strives to make its beads more ethical by engaging in fair trade practices. The beads are sourced from around the world, and the store makes sure that the beadmakers are compensated fairly. This online store has a dazzling array of beads that come from artisans all over the world. There are many beads in this store that are hard to find, including copper beads, amber beads, and metal Tibetan beads. It’s an interesting shop to visit, and the beads would make excellent kandi.
- The Bead Chest has numerous styles of rare and unique beads in its online store. Whether you want brass Ethiopian beads, recycled glass beads or something else that makes your jewelry pop, they have it. The Bead Chest is involved in numerous African communities to bring its customers beads that are handmade, authentic, and beautiful. They also use fair trade practices to make sure the artisans are fairly compensated for their work, which in turn helps the community to support itself. The store also has beading supplies like spacers, clasps and jump rings.
- Antelope Beads is an online store that sells beads that are fair trade and made by artisans from around the world. It makes it a priority to buy from women to help them and their families through their artistic trade. The beads are everything from Cambodian ceramic beads to polymer clap beads. They have every color and an enormous number of styles available. They also offer many of the component’s jewelry makers use to finish off their pieces, such as pendants, craft wire and a wide range of clasps.