How Do They Dye Pearls in Oysters

Pearl Description

Perchance the best-loved gems of all time, pearls—both natural and mod cultured pearls—occur in a wide variety of colors. The most familiar colors are white and cream (a light yellow brown). Blackness, gray, and silver are as well fairly common, but the palette of pearl colors extends to every hue. The primary color, or bodycolor, is oft modified by boosted colors chosen overtones, which are typically pink (sometimes called rosé), greenish, purple, or bluish. Some pearls also bear witness the iridescent phenomenon known every bit orient.

This newly opened akoya pearl oyster reveals the cultured pearl that grew inside its gonad. This oyster'south scientific name is pinctada fucata (martensii).

Cultured pearls are popular for bead necklaces and bracelets, or mounted in solitaires, pairs, or clusters for utilise in earrings, rings, and pendants. Larger pearls with unusual shapes are popular with creative jewelry designers.

Multicolored Pearl Necklace

This multicolored necklace combines the dazzler of Tahitian and South Ocean cultured pearls. The scientific names of the oysters that produced them are, respectively, Pinctada margaritifera and Pinctada maxima. - Courtesy Frank Mastoloni & Sons, Inc.

Pearl—natural or cultured—is a The states birthstone for June, together with alexandrite and moonstone.

Natural Pearls vs. Cultured Pearls

Natural Pearls

Natural pearls course in the bodies, or mantle tissue, of certain mollusks, normally effectually a microscopic irritant, and always without human help of any kind.

Cultured Pearls

The growth of cultured pearls requires human intervention and care. Today, about of the mollusks used in the culturing process are raised specifically for that purpose, although some wild mollusks are still collected and used.

This grouping of cultured pearls displays some of the exotic colors pearls tin can exhibit. - Blaire Beavers, courtesy Takayas Mizuno

To brainstorm the procedure, a skilled technician takes mantle tissue from a sacrificed clam of the same species and inserts a shell bead along with a minor piece of mantle tissue into a host clam'southward gonad, or several pieces of mantle tissue without chaplet into a host mollusk'south mantle. If a bead is used, the pall tissue grows and forms a sac around it and secretes nacre in and onto the bead to eventually form a cultured pearl. If no dewdrop is used, nacre forms around the individual implanted drape tissue pieces. Workers tend the mollusks until the cultured pearls are harvested.

Pearl Types

In that location are four major types of cultured whole pearls:

Akoya Cultured Pearls

Akoya cultured pearls are the almost familiar blazon of saltwater cultured pearl to nigh people in the U.S and other western markets. Many customers think of white or cream colored akoyas as the classic pearl used for jewelry, peculiarly single-strand necklaces. Nippon and People's republic of china both produce akoya cultured pearls.

South Ocean Cultured Pearls

Commonwealth of australia, Indonesia, and the Philippines are leading sources of these saltwater cultured pearls. Due south Ocean cultured pearls can be white to silver or golden, depending on the type of oyster. Their large size and thick nacre, due to a long growth period, plus their limited critical growing conditions are all factors contributing to their value.

Tahitian Cultured Pearls

Cultivated primarily effectually the islands of French Polynesia (the most familiar of these is Tahiti). These saltwater cultured pearls, sometimes referred to as black pearls, have a broad color range. They might be grey, black or brown, and they tin can have blue, green, purple or pink overtones.

Freshwater Cultured Pearls

Freshwater cultured pearls are the well-nigh usually produced pearls and they are one of the most popular pearl types amidst shoppers and jewelry designers. This is due to their remarkable range of sizes, shapes and colors, plus their commercial availability at lower price points. They are ordinarily cultured in freshwater lakes and ponds, often with many pearls grown in one oyster. China is the leading source for freshwater cultured pearls.

Cultured pearls from Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar, are grown in the Pinctada Maxima mollusk. This trounce one is called gilded-lipped because of the color of the outer rim of its mother-of-pearl layer.

The black-lipped mollusk tin can produce a multifariousness of cultured pearl colors. The color of the mother-of-pearl layer is ofttimes related to the colour of the resulting cultured pearl's nacre. - Courtesy A & Z Pearls and Tasaki Shinju Co