Plastic beads, as the name suggests, are made from plastic. Apart from glass beads and stone beads, plastic beads are the most common types of beads used for various beads crafts, jewelery making, and other bead work.

How Plastic Beads are Made?

Plastic is a very flexible material.Therefore, it is made in a variety of shapes by the beads manufacturers by the method of molding. The 'caste' or the plastic substance is injected into molds to produce differently shaped beads. The molds are such that automatically make the holes in the beads so that stringing material can be driven into them for craft works. By giving different forms to the plastic, many types of plastic beads such as round beads, square beads, cube beads etc. are produced. There are three basic types of beads produced- opaque, transparent and translucent. Opaque Beads are solid colored beads that do not allow light to pass through them.

Transparent Beads allow light to pass through them. They may be clear beads (without any color) or colored beads.

Translucent Beads also allow light to pass through them but only partially. They are also either clear or colored beads.

These basic types of beads are then given various finishes to make them more beautiful and useful for various crafts.

Featured Plastic Beads Product Catalog

Multicolor Faceted Plastic Beads Plastic Craft Beads Plastic Alphabet Beads Plastic Pony Beads Animal Plastic Beads Plastic Beads Costume Jewelry These are the sample plastic beads by our wholesale plastic beads suppliers. If you have requirement of any types of plastic beads in bulk, request a quote and receive quick response from our pre-verified suppliers. Send Your Requirement

Plastic Bead Finishes

Bead finishing is very important process for giving desired look to all types of beads including plastic beads in order to make them suitable for different bead projects.

Lustre- The beads in this type of finish is given colorless transparent coatings to make them very glossy.

Matte- Matt finish denotes a very low-lustre, velvety, smooth surface. Sometimes, the matt finish beads are referred to as " frosted beads " too. The matted transparent beads can be called translucent beads.

Metallic- The metallic finish is basically opaque in appearance. It is coated with certain materials that give the impression of metal but the underlying substance remains plastic only. The basic metallic coatings include gunmetal (hematite), bronze, gold, silver, copper, antique gold, or antique silver. There may be many other kinds of metallic finishes.

Satin Finish- To give a satiny surface to the plastic beads, a low-lustre effect is given to them. This appearance can be placed between glossy and matte finish.

Faceted Finish- For giving sparkle and flash to the beads, faceted finish is given to them. Faceted, in fact, means that the surface of the bead is cut into many different sides or ‘faces’. This produces faceted beads through which light travels and bounces off the bead creating glow and flair. The faceted plastic beads are sometimes also called machine cut beads.

Measurement and Sizes of Plastic Beads

Beads are generally measured in millimeters. Plastic beads (or other beads too) range in size from under a millimeter to over a centimeter in diameter. One centimeter is equal to ten millimeters. However, more commonly people prefer to work with size 4mm plastic beads to 10mm plastic beads depending upon their project requirements. Some projects, especially beaded jewellery making, might need larger plastic beads than 10mm size but it is not difficult to find even 15-16mm plastic beads.