Cultured Pearls

Cultured pearls are formed the same as natural pearls except man inserts a nucleus irritant such as a bead or tissue (a process called nucleation), and the mollusk secretes many layers of nacre to create the iridescent pearl.  There are two types of nucleation: tissue nucleation for freshwater mussels and bead nucleation for saltwater oysters.  Freshwater tissue nucleation can be performed up to 50 times at once for mussels; whereas, saltwater oysters can only be nucleated with one to five beads at the same time.  Thus, cultured freshwater pearls are produced more abundantly and less expensively than cultured saltwater pearls.

Virtually all pearls harvested and sold today are cultured pearls as opposed to natural pearls, which are produced naturally without human intervention and are extremely rare.  Cultured pearls can be either freshwater or saltwater and produce pearls naturally after nucleation by humans.  One cannot tell the difference between cultured pearls and natural pearls unless comparing by use of x-ray technology.  Low quality cultured pearls are used in cosmetic products while mid to high quality cultured pearls are used to make beautiful cultured pearl jewelry.

The process of producing cultured pearls through bead nucleation was perfected in the 20th century by a Japanese man named Kokichi Mikimoto (also famous for Japanese Akoya cultured pearls).  During the past ten years; however, China has become the leading producer of very high quality Freshwater and Akoya cultured pearls that rival Japan’s selection.  This intense pearl producing rivalry has resulted in much higher quality and more affordable cultured pearl jewelry than ever before.

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