Niihau Shell Lei. The niihau shell lei making process is tedious from start to finish. On a good day of shell picking, a skilled picker might harvest a film canister of prime quality kahelelani shells in about four hours. All this time is spent on hands and knees or lying in the sand. People frequently ask if you can go out and just scoop up the shells. They are always shocked when they learn that they are collected one at a time.
The best beaches produce kahelelani in a full range of colors including tan, light pink, hot pink, red, burgundy, brown, and olive green which is more abundant on Niihau than Kauai. Kamoa is a yellow to gold turban shell that is similar to kahelelani, but grown much larger. Only the juveniles can be sewn into leis, usually as accents. These shell lei can be very expensive depending upon who sewed the lei and which shells are used in the lei. It is not uncommon for a Niihau Shell lei to run in the ten's of thousands of dollars. Mine have very few of the kahelelani shells (colorful ones) and was quite affordable. Aloha :)
