Peterborough keepsake jewellery business Nectar Co. recently had an Instagram reel go viral with more than 10 million views in just a few short weeks, keeping founder Rose Terry busy to meet the new demand with orders coming in from around the globe.
In the reel, Terry smashes the lid of a pregnancy test, before showing off a custom gold band ring with gold flakes speckled in the blue stone that was crafted out of the lid. At the time of this writing, the reel posted in early October had over 10 million views, over 460,000 likes, over 33,000 shares, and over 600 comments.
“It’s a testament to how universal the symbol of a pregnancy test is,” Terry says. “Whether someone carried that pregnancy to full term or had a miscarriage or an abortion, so many people can relate to the moment of seeing a positive pregnancy test.”
Pregnancy tests are not the only mementos Terry transforms into jewellery on the Otonabee hobby farm where she runs Nectar Co. She creates costume earrings, pendants, rings, and beads using preserved breastmilk (even if it is expired), locks of hair, cremated ashes, umbilical cords, placentas, dried flowers, or other materials that document a time, place, or memory.
The viral reel — which Terry notes has doubled the company’s orders — comes just after Nectar Co. celebrated one year in business in October. Though Terry, a young mother of two, has always been an artist and jewellery maker, she explains that she only began thinking about keepsake jewellery after the birth of her second child.
Completely self-taught, Terry began by crafting pieces made from her own breastmilk by using a preservation technique to turn it into a powder. It then gets ground and mixed with a jeweller’s resin to make the stone.
“For so many women, breastfeeding is about so much more than feeding,” Terry says. “It’s about the connection with your child and all your hard work, energy, effort, and the experience. Whether that’s a week or four years, it’s a really important experience for a mother and their child. I definitely resonated with it, and I think that’s why so many other women resonate with it as well.”
After crafting a piece for herself, Terry had more and more friends reaching out to request their own breastmilk jewellery. In grieving the loss of a friend who was very close to her, Terry felt it important to also offer memorial pieces, using ashes to create the stones.
Though it might seem a niche product and certainly not something you can find in just any jewellery shop, breastmilk jewellery has been around as long as at least two decades and is increasingly growing in popularity. But Terry, who has an education in art history, knows that keepsakes themselves are not a new phenomenon.
“If you look back hundreds of years, keepsakes — memorial keepsakes specifically — have been around for such a long time,” Terry says. “People would keep a lock of hair in a ring with the date of a death on it, and that is not unusual if you look back in human history. It is completely human nature to have keepsakes and to wear it like jewellery.”
Art history is not the only experience Terry draws from in running Nectar Co. Now a professor of business at Fleming College, Terry spend eight years working with the Innovation Cluster Peterborough and the Kawarthas, where she has not only held positions in marketing and communications but also developed programs and delivered workshops for local entrepreneurs and business owners.
“That was an excellent foundation for me because I was able to see a lot of the behind-the-scenes, so I knew what I was getting myself into when launching this business,” she says. “Because I had created so many programs for entrepreneurs and start-ups, I was able to use the things I had already done and then anticipate the next steps.”
Even before the viral reel introduced Nectar Co. to a wide audience of new clients, Terry used her business and marketing knowledge — and worldwide shipping — to attract customers from as far as the United States, the UK, Switzerland, and Germany.
The customer sends Terry their valued keepsake, she crafts it, and sends it back within 12 to 20 weeks. Her customers can shop from Nectar Co.’s curated collection of styles and stone shapes, then customize the pieces with their keepsakes and include elements like shimmer or colour flakes. Customers can detail a very specific design they have in mind, or they can simply pass along the keepsake for Terry to come up with an original, one-of-a-kind creation.
“I’ve had women tell me that just the act of gathering the ashes and designing the keepsake was healing for her after losing her loved one,” says Terry. “It’s not like jewellery where you just pick a ring up off the counter. You’re designing it from beginning to end, so it’s a very intentional process that can be very healing for people.”
Stories of healing are just some of the many stories Terry is trusted with when creating the custom pieces. Though a lot of the stories are joyful, with customers documenting their first pregnancies or preserving flowers from their wedding, others are more emotionally challenging.
Terry recalls an especially powerful one from a mother who combined the breastmilk from feeding one child and the ashes of another.
“Keepsakes oftentimes are about the story or the emotion, and it’s not actually about the physical object,” says Terry. “It’s about the story behind it or what it means.”
Customers are also able to send other items that are meaningful to them, like sand or stone from a special place. One customer chose to include breastmilk and crushed SickKids Bravery Beads to document their stories.
“I truly believe that keepsakes are one of the most important things that you can ever own because it’s so personal,” Terry says.
Alongside her own jewellery, each day Terry wears her grandmother’s ring, so she also appreciates the value of having a story to pass on between loved ones.
“We like to have memories and stories to pass down to our children,” Terry says. “I think that’s what’s so powerful about keepsakes — people can have them and wear them, but then they can pass them down and they can tell the story behind it, and then that can be an heirloom in their family.”
With Nectar Co.’s pregnancy test cap Instagram reel going viral (which encouraged Terry to celebrate with a bespoke cake from Millbrook’s Heck Yes! Cake), Terry is looking to hire another hand to support the influx of business.
In its growth, Nectar Co. will also be responding to the most common inquiry by expanding the collection to feature more unisex pieces, like a more “masculine” pendant and rings with a thicker band.
Terry recognizes that the healing or pride one gains from keepsake jewellery is not exclusive to women, and the process of designing the keepsake can be just as empowering for male customers.
“Truly my goal is to help someone heal or to empower them in their journey and so it feels amazing that I can be a small part of that journey for them,” says Terry.
To view the whole collection, visit nectarco.ca. You can also follow Nectar Co. on Facebook and Instagram.
