Pearls Part 3: What The Heck Are Freshwater Pearls?
Published On: 11-14-2011 06:55pm
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Unlike their saltwater counterparts, most cultured freshwater pearls are not created by inserting a bead nucleus into the mollusk, but by inserting a piece of donor mollusk mantle tissue into the host mollusk. The result of this process created a pearl that is all-nacre, like the natural saltwater pearl, and can last for generations. This process produces pearls in a variety of shapes including nugget, stick, rice, coin, drop, button, blister and keishi pearls, as well as pearls that approach round in shape.
Fairly recently, the Chinese have developed a bead-nucleus production method for culturing freshwater pearls that is producing perfectly round pearls. Like their cultured salt-water counterparts, these pearls are not all nacre, but have a layer of nacre on the outside of the pearl.
Freshwater pearls come in a variety of natural and soft colors including peach, pink, cream, a silvery gray and lavender. Modern coloring processes can result in freshwater pearls in many other colors however. The quality of today's cultured freshwater pearls can be excellent, and pricing for these pearls makes them an affordable and attractive alternative to cultured saltwater pearls.
While I do have a few strands of cultured saltwater pearls, I use cultured freshwater pearls almost exclusively in my designs, usually in near-round, round, keishi, nugget or rice shapes. The attached image is of an unusally lovely strand of keishi pearls in shades of peaches and pinks with a lustrous, almost irridescent quality to them. I hope you like it.
