About Pearl

   

    1. What are Cultured Pearls

        Cultured pearls are pearls grown with the assistance of human efforts instead of by accident. Pearls are
        cultured both in seawater and in freshwater.

    2. What are the differences between Freshwater Cultured Pearls and Saltwater Cultured Pearls?
 
      a. The difference in the thickness of nacre layer.

           Most of freshwater cultured pearls are solid nacre pearls.  Akoya saltwater cultured pearls are shell beads
           with a thin nacre coating up to 0.49mm. 

           South sea pearls usually have nacre coatings in excess of 2mm.

           This means if you cut a Freshwater cultured pearl in half, you see a solid pearl, if you cut a saltwater
           cultured pearl in half, you see a shell bead with a thin coating of nacre.
 
       b. Pearl shape difference  

           Freshwater cultured pearls offer a wide variety of shapes, including round shape,  rice shape, button shape
           etc. Perfectly round fresh water pearls are relatively rare, because the nucleus implanted as the core of pearl
           is very tiny. However, if you are getting a piece of (a strand of) high quality round freshwater cultured pearl,
           you are getting a valuable solid nacre pearl.

           Akoya saltwater cultured pearls are often round shape due to the sphere core and relatively thin outer layer of
           nacre.

     3. How are Pearls Cultured?

        In the freshwater culturing process, a tiny piece of mantle tissue cut from a donor mollusk is implanted into the
        mother oyster. The implanted tissue stimulates the oyster to secret nacre which eventually forms a pearl. Since
        the tissue implanted is very tiny and often dissolved during the process, fresh water pearls are almost solid
        nacre pearls. In the seawater pearl culturing process, a mother oyster was implanted with a sphere cut from
        the shell of a certain type of clam, such as American fresh water clam. The pearls are harvest when the core is
        covered with a nacre layer, which usually range from very thin up to 0.49mm. South sea pearls usually have
        nacre coatings of more than 2mm.The thicker the nacre layer, the better and long lasting the pearl.