What does natural pearl look like?

Descriptor: 4 ways to determine whether the pearls in front of you are natural or artificial. Which pearls are better and why. How to buy pearl jewelry on the Internet so as not to overpay for a fake. Natural pearls are a classic that is associated with elegance and the image of a lady. But him more difficult to mine , it takes longer to grow and therefore you can increasingly find artificial pearls on the market. And the similarities are so strong that it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference at first glance. And in this article you will learn 4 ways to do this.

Taste it

This is an old proven method that our great-grandmothers knew. Try running the pearl over your teeth as if you were biting it, and you will feel a characteristic creaking sound. And real pearls are cold and you will have the feeling that you are holding a stone in your mouth, and not a plastic bead. And don’t be afraid – you won’t leave scratches on the surface. Faux pearls are perfectly smooth and will glide over your teeth. And if you are unlucky and buy very cheap pearls, the mother-of-pearl paint will simply peel off the pearl and your jewelry – a necklace, ring or earrings – will lose its original appearance.

Throw a pearl on the table

Natural pearls are elastic in their properties, and if you throw them on a hard surface, be it the floor or a table, the bead will bounce back like a ball. Of course, this method will not work with a necklace, but stud earrings will show whether they contain real pearls or not. With a necklace, another method is more suitable – rub the beads against each other, and then try to connect them together. They will seem to slightly push away from each other. You won’t get this effect with faux pearls. Well, the sound from the contact of natural pearls will be loud, but with plastic it will be quiet and dull.

Consider the pearl

Pearls that are created artificially always have an ideal shape. Natural pearls are not perfect and may have some natural deviations, because the bead in the shell takes several years to form and it is impossible to predict what is happening inside and how the nacre layer is distributed.

Which pearl is better

If previously only natural pearls were valued, today they are not much inferior in popularity to artificial pearls. Production has reached such a level that even in price some jewelry is superior to natural jewelry. For example, Swarovski pearls have an unusual shine that seems to flow from within. And all because the bead is based on a Swarovski crystal. In addition, the rich color range allows choose pearl jewelry for every taste.

How to determine the naturalness of pearls when buying online

Indeed, on the Internet you cannot taste a bead, rub it or throw it on the table. You can apply these methods to jewelry that you already have. — Read reviews from other customers. — Choose jewelry in stores where they are not afraid of returns or can even deliver items to you to try on. – Compare prices. Products made from high-quality pearls cannot be too cheap. Natural pearls, artificial pearls, cheap or expensive – all this is secondary. The main thing is that the jewelry makes you happy and wears it with pleasure❤️❤️❤️

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Jewelry with pearls is an eternal classic. At all times, such accessories were considered a symbol of aristocratic impeccability and standard elegance. The soft glow of mother-of-pearl spheres is mesmerizing. Pearl accessories never go out of fashion, so many people dream of adding such models to their jewelry box. But when choosing, it is important to remember that pearls are different from pearls. What are wild and cultured pearls? How to distinguish fake pearls from real ones? Let’s try to understand the nuances that are important to know before going to a jewelry store.

How wild pearls are born

The ancient Greeks believed that pearls were the tears of mermaids. There was a legend that a sea diva fell in love with a fisherman, but the gods did not allow them to be together. The mermaid cried for a long time, and over time her tears turned into stone.

Naturally, the legend is just a fiction, but the process of forming wild pearls is truly unique. Mother-of-pearl spheres are a product of the mollusk’s reaction to foreign bodies that get inside the shell. The irritant can be a small parasite, a grain of sand, or even a fragment of the shell itself. The mollusk protects itself from the uninvited guest and begins to envelop it with mother-of-pearl. Layer by layer – and a smooth shiny sphere appears. This process takes many years.

The quality, size and even color of pearls directly depends on the composition of the water. Many people mistakenly believe that natural pearls come only in the classic color – white with a bluish iris. However, there are a huge number of shades of pearls. In addition to white spheres, there are gray, pink, golden, purple, and blue ones. Jewelers highly value natural black pearls, reddish-brown spheres, and green-blue ones. Of course, the shades listed above are less common than classic white.

It is generally accepted that pearls are a ball of ideal shape. In fact, “correct” specimens are rarely found among seafood. Typically, wild pearls have a curved, twisted shape and are swollen. There are also perfectly round pearls, but this is rather an exception to the rule. Naturally, reference copies are very expensive.

Why wild pearls are rare

Natural pearls are not easy to find on sale. Not every shell plays the role of a “treasury”. If you open a hundred mollusks, you can find only 5-10 mother-of-pearl spheres. Of these, only a couple or three will be of acceptable quality. The popularity of pearl jewelry led to the fact that already at the end of the XNUMXth century, natural precious spheres became scarce. Due to the active search for mother-of-pearl balls, many species of mollusks have practically disappeared.

Nowadays, mass mining of wild pearls is prohibited. Seafood is supplied in minimal quantities from Sri Lanka and Japan. Pearls are mined in the Persian Gulf, in the waters of the Red Sea, but we are, of course, not talking about large-scale volumes. Given the limited supply of wild pearls, jewelry with them costs incredible amounts of money. But everyone wants to join the beauty. This prompted scientists to look for an alternative to seafood: soon pearls began to be grown on special farms.

Cultured equals natural

To create most of the jewelry that can be found in jewelry stores, cultured pearls are used. It appears thanks to the joint efforts of the mollusk and man. Do not confuse cultured pearls with artificial pearls. Like the wild one, it goes through a long journey of “birth.” But there is a difference: the irritant ends up inside the mollusk not by chance; it is introduced into the shell on purpose. The process of formation of a cultivated and wild sphere is the same: a foreign particle becomes overgrown with nacre and becomes valuable.

Pearl farmers can take control of the final result – the size, shape, color of the pearl ball. With natural pearls, what’s inside the shell is always a surprise. Another difference between cultured and natural pearls is that the former matures faster.

The cultivation technology was invented by the Japanese scientist Kokichi Yakimoto. He experimented for 20 long years to bring it to perfection. Now the technology is used all over the world. The process of growing pearls looks like this:

1. The shell of a three-year-old mollusk is carefully opened and a tiny ball of mother-of-pearl is added;
2. the oyster is placed in a pond with suitable water (pH and temperature are important);
3. the foreign body gradually becomes overgrown with nacre;
4. the pearl is regularly turned over to obtain the ideal shape;
5. after two or three years the “harvest” is collected.

How to distinguish farm pearls from wild ones? It is almost impossible to do this: the task can only be done by specialists. Cultivated jewelry is not inferior in its properties to natural jewelry, and given that there are so many wild specimens in the world, pearl farms have become a real boon for the jewelry industry.

There are two types of cultured pearls: sea and river. There is a difference between them that fans of pearl jewelry should know about. Let’s talk about this below.

How to obtain cultured saltwater pearls

Saltwater pearls grown on farms are as close as possible to wild ones. To obtain a pearl, a foreign body (bead) is inserted into the reproductive organ of the mollusk (gonads). The “Treasury” is kept in sea water. The mollusk tries with all its might to isolate the implant, and as a result, the ball becomes overgrown with nacre and the result is a pearl.

The foreign body is covered with a thin pearlescent layer within 4-8 months, but the pearls are removed after about two years. It is important that the mother of pearl is deep and beautiful. Only such pearls are valued by jewelers. Up to three spheres can be extracted from one shell, but usually, as in the case of nature’s efforts, there is only one pearl.

Features of growing river pearls

Freshwater pearls are grown using similar technology to sea pearls. But there are also differences. The foreign body is not placed in the gonads, but is placed in the mantle of the mollusk. This allows you to simultaneously grow 10-20 pearls in one oyster. Naturally, such pearls are cheaper, because they are easier to obtain.

Most freshwater pearls are grown in China. The farms are located on rivers, lakes and former rice fields that are now flooded. The microclimate of China is ideal for mollusks: they reproduce quite quickly in it.

Sea and river: what is the difference

When cultivating pearls, a person controls the growing process. However, the appearance of pearls largely depends on the chemical composition of the water in which they “ripen”. Therefore, there is a visible difference between the marine and freshwater realms. Let’s try to figure out how to distinguish sea pearls from river pearls.

• The size. Pearls obtained from sea shellfish are larger than those grown on river farms. Its diameter ranges from 7 to 18 mm. If the pearl in the jewelry is small (diameter does not exceed 7 mm), then most likely it grew in fresh waters.
• Form. Sea pearls are close to a sphere in shape. Specimens are round or teardrop-shaped. Often seafood is close to ideal in shape. But their freshwater “relatives” are far from perfect: they most often have an elongated shape, resembling a pear or an oval with uneven edges. The ideal spherical shape is very rare among freshwater pearls.
• Color. You can distinguish a marine variety from a freshwater one by its color palette. In “treasuries” that are stored in salt water, there are specimens of a wide variety of shades: whitish, cream, golden, with a gray tint, greenish, even black. The color variation of freshwater pearls is not so impressive. Typically, river shells produce pearls of light shades: from rich cream to light milky. It is also important to pay attention to the uniformity of color: on river specimens you can often find barely noticeable spots, while sea specimens are flawless in this regard.
• Brilliance . Mother-of-pearl balls of river origin, unlike glossy sea spheres, do not sparkle brightly in the sun. Their shine is soft and matte.

To determine the origin of pearls, it is important to consider the characteristics as a whole. But often only an experienced specialist can distinguish the types, and then only by looking at the cross-section of the sphere. Since it is difficult to check the origin of pearls, it is worth buying jewelry inlaid with them in trusted stores. Honest jewelry stores usually indicate in which waters the pearl was grown – fresh or salt.

Interestingly, sea pearls are more expensive, although river pearls will last longer. Freshwater specimens have more mother-of-pearl, which increases their wear resistance. But sea “beads” are valued for their ideal shapes and variety of shades. The choice is yours!

Imitation pearl

Pearl accessories are incredibly popular, but not everyone can afford them. Therefore, back in ancient times, a way to imitate pearls was invented: paraffin was poured inside glass spheres and passed off as seafood. Over the years, technology has changed and has reached such perfection that it is difficult to understand how to distinguish real pearls from “replica” pearls with the naked eye. For example, the house of Chanel produces jewelry with imitation pearls, which are as similar as possible to seafood.

Modern fakes are usually made of porcelain, plastic, and glass. The top of the spheres is repeatedly covered with mother-of-pearl. That is, artificial pearls are solely the merit of man, mollusks have nothing to do with it. Naturally, such beads do not have jewelry value.

9 Ways to Recognize Real Shellfish Gifts

A real jewel cannot be cheap. If you are offered a product with pearls for mere pennies, this is a sign that the spheres are fake. But more often the opposite happens: they try to sell a fake at the price of natural pearls. Having shelled out a round sum for a piece of jewelry, it’s especially disappointing to find out that there’s no smell of a precious stone there. To avoid getting into trouble, it is important to know how to distinguish natural pearls from artificial ones. There are many methods that help you understand where the fake is and where the true value is. Here are the 9 main ones.

1. Estimate the weight. Cultured pearls are lightweight because they are usually made of plastic. Natural spheres are quite significant. Therefore, before purchasing a pearl item, always try to objectively assess its weight in your hand. Can a string of pearls be weightless? The answer is clear: if it is not a fake, then no, it cannot.
2. Take a closer look at the shine. The shine of pearls is noticeable to the naked eye. It is deep and uniform. Even the matte reflections of freshwater pearls are an order of magnitude brighter than the shine of a high-quality imitation. Do not buy dull pearls: most likely they are fake, or the spheres are of too low quality.
3. “Try it.” They knew how to identify real pearls back in ancient times: they tried the bead “by tooth.” There is no need to bite the ball: to understand the value, just lightly rub it against your teeth. The natural specimen will creak, but the imitation will not make a sound.
4. Throw it up. You can recognize a fake by throwing pearls from a height of half a meter. Real seafood will “jump” briskly (they will begin to bounce off the surface many times), the imitation will simply fall to the floor, because its density does not allow “jumping”.
5. Rub it. If you have a pearl necklace in your jewelry box, you can easily check whether it is real. Just rub the pearls together. Rub lightly, but it is important to get pearl powder. If the spheres were removed from mollusks, then fine scratches will be visible on them after rubbing. Don’t be alarmed, they will soon disappear. If you manage to buy a fake, then such manipulation will lead to the fact that the layer of mother-of-pearl will simply be erased.
6. Compare pearls. Are you buying an elegant mother-of-pearl thread for your neck, but don’t know how to choose real pearls? Be sure to compare the spheres that make up the accessory. Each natural pearl is special, so no two identical spheres are found in a necklace. But fakes are always similar to each other in their ideal shape.
7. Inspect the hole. When choosing a necklace, carefully inspect each pearl where the hole is drilled. Natural pearls have a high density, so such manipulations are not scary for them: there will be no cracks around the hole. The fake is softer, so a “web” of small chips forms at the drilling site.
8. Take a look through a microscope. If you look at a pearl through a microscope, you can easily determine whether it is real or not. The sample donated by nature has visible scales, while the fake is polished smoothly.
9. Place in an electromagnetic field. If a pearl is placed in the electromagnetic spectrum, the natural sample will not move, but the fake will begin to roll. Inside the fake there is a ball, the material of which reacts to the field.

A person ignorant of the art of jewelry cannot always accurately determine whether the jewelry in front of him is a fake or a real one, even using special verification methods. In addition, not every method can be applied in a store. Only a gemologist can confirm the naturalness of pearls: a specialist, in addition to visual inspection, uses a translucent apparatus that allows you to determine the authenticity of pearls and evaluate their quality. If you are not going to engage a gemologist consultant, then there is only one way to protect yourself from counterfeiting – by buying jewelry in trusted stores that value their reputation. And the online store Gold.ua is always at your service!