Beauty of Pearls

Freshwater pearl cultivation originated in Lake Biwa, Japan in 1914. For over half a century, pearls from this lake enjoyed status as the most beautiful in the world. Sadly, around the mid-1970s, pearl production in Lake Biwa began to decline then nearly ceased to exist. The primary cause was environmental pollution.  Meanwhile, Lake Kasumi ga Ura has emerged as one of Japan’s only freshwater pearl producing bodies of water. The widest variety of pearl shapes and colors are produced in freshwater pearl cultivation using mussels. This was begun experimentally in Japan in the 1920s and 30s. They come from freshwater mussels.

Fresh Water Pearls

Apart from Japan, China has dominated the freshwater pearl industry since the 1970s, and the fierce competition there has led to prices ranging from incredibly cheap to reasonable, along with constant innovation to create new and different varieties.

Freshwater pearls are produced by mussels and oysters that live in rivers, lakes or ponds.  They are mostly cultivated. To culture pearls, skilled workers open mussel shells just a slight crack, and insert smell pieces of live mantle tissue from another mussel into tiny slits made in the mantle. Depending on their position and the length of time they are left in the mussels, they will tend to be either oval-drop-barrel or lentil-button-flat. Colors include some whitish, but most are in the peach-pink-lavender range with occasional flecks of gold or brown-green pond slime color. A variety of factors affect determine the shape and quality of pearls. These include the conditions in which the oyster or mussel is raised, the health of the host, water temperature and quality, etc.

A Comprehensive Knowledge On Freshwater Pearls

Pearls are next to diamonds. They hold great value in the global market. They are produced by embedding a small-coated piece or any other tissue in the mussel. The nacre is not necessarily a round nucleus. Therefore, there are very less chances for the pearl to come out round in shape when reaped. The fact about natural pearls is they are mostly irregular in shape.

Generating a freshwater pearl is much easier. The oyster can be implanted with the tissue many a times. It has the capacity to produce around 30-40 pearls. The freshwater pearls are usually white in colour. However, they also come in a variety of colours such as pink, lavender, purple, and rose. The rareness of the colour fetches high value in the market. The variety of colours occurs due to the diversity in the genetics, mussel species, the exact position of the pearl in the shell, and the quality of water. Naturally, black pearls are very rare. Very few are generated in the course of time hence these are valued very high in the market.

The freshwater and Akoya pearls are both generated but they vary from each other in several aspects. The Akoya pearls are cultured in Japan hence it got a Japanese name. The Akoya are generated in saltwater and are spherical in shape. These have thinner and delicate nacre than freshwater pearls. Akoya pearls dilapidate quickly in comparison to these pearls. The Akoyas have more lusters on them than these pearls.

In the present times, freshwater pearl jewelry is easily affordable. These come in a variety of beautiful colors and shapes. It is a prized possession of many women.

Natural Pearl Jewellery Beats All

While jewellery always look good with most outfits, and is a mandatory for special occasions like weddings, it gives a refined touch to the wearer. Out of all types of jewellery, the pearl jewelry always stands out more than usual jewellery. They are relatively more expensive, and natural pearls are extremely rare. Pearls are always delicate, and are prone to even the weakest of acids solutions. These should always be treated with extreme care, and one must be careful while cleaning these.

As most may know, pearls are formed inside the shellfish. Their shells act as a defense for the pearls against other harmful foreign bodies. As the process is fully natural, and the size and shape of foreign body is never determined, it is too rare to find a perfect round pearl.  This is one main reason why the perfect round natural jewellery is always expensive than the usual pearl jewellery.

Natural pearls iridescence is similar to that of butterfly wings and seashells. Just like these both, the colors of the pearls seem to change with the direction. This all is because of the unique layered structure of pearl, and all natural pearls will be different.

If you are not sure whether the pearl you have got is natural or not, you can go to an expert to get several tests of it done, or an X-Ray of the Pearl to examine whether a it was made using a nucleus bead or not.

The pearl jewelry, regardless of the occasion you are wearing or buying it, will always look beautiful and refined.