SPOT THE DIFFERENCE (THE STORY BEHIND PEARLS)

10th Jun 2014

We had promised to blog about pearls in one of our earlier blog posts zuri-perle-back-in-united-states but we just hadn't gotten round to it. With the increasing request for pearl sets by our clients, its become necessary to shed more light on this beautiful semi precious gemstone.

Here is a picture of a couple of stings of fresh water pearls and a couple of strings of acrylic/glass/fake pearls. We chose pearls in the same color to make it even more difficult to tell the difference, lol.

Can you spot the difference? If you can't, then this blog post is definitely for you :)

First of, what are pearls? A Pearl is a "hard, lustrous spherical mass, typically white or bluish-gray, formed within the shell of a pearl oyster or other bivalve mollusk and highly prized as a gem" Oxford online dictionary

Pearls occur in both salt water and fresh water. Salt water pearls grow within pearl oysters and occur spontaneously in the wild causing them to be more expensive than fresh water pearls which grow within fresh water pearl mussels and are produced through human intervention.

"Pearls are formed inside the shell of certain mollusks as a defense mechanism against a potentially threatening irritant such as a parasite inside the shell, or an attack from outside, injuring the mantle tissue.

The mollusk creates a pearl sac to seal of the irritation." Wikipedia

Prior to the invention of the technique of harvesting fresh water pearls, to find one wild pearl many hundreds of pearl oyster or pearl mussels had to be gathered and opened (killed) this resulted in such pearls fetching extraordinary prices.

"Today, cultured pearls are grown and harvested in many parts of the world including the fresh waters of the Tennessee River. The majority of cultured pearls come from Japan, China and the South Pacific.American Gem Trade Association

A number of the jewelry sets worn today are made with fresh water cultured pearls, however we also have imitation pearls, they are made from glass or acrylic and coated with paint or a solution to replicate the iridescence of the cultured or natural occurring pearls.

Now that we've covered the basic, lets move on to the question we get asked by a number of our clients, 'How do I tell the difference'?

Here are a few easy pointers to help spot the difference between genuine fresh water pearls and glass/acrylic/fake pearls

Touch test - As with most semi precious gemstones, pearls are cool to the touch even in warm environments. They will be cool when initially placed against your neck or body and will gradually warm up to your body temperature. Glass beads can also be cool to the touch, this depends on the temperature of the room where they are stored. If the temperature of the room is cool then the beads will also feel cool, if the temperature of the room is warm the beads will be similar to the room temperature.
Rub test - If you rub two genuine pearls together there should be some friction and some powdery residue left behind from the rubbing action.
Scrape test - If you scrape pearls with a sharp object or tool and the color peels of then its not real. Real pearls are naturally occurring and should not peel, even if dyed the color should be absorbed by the pearl and should not coat it. While fake pearls are glass or acrylic beads covered with coating. (Please note that scraping pearls can damage them permanently)
Imperfections - Look for imperfections. Pearls occur in a variety of shapes, from oval,round, baroque, rice. pear e.t.,c. Perfectly round shaped pearls are expensive and rare. If you come across pearls that are perfectly round, smooth with no imperfections and are not being charged an arm and a leg for them, they are most likely not real. To confirm that the pearls are genuine you can try any of the other tests we've highlighted
The Tooth Test: To find out if a pearl is real, lightly rub it against the front of your tooth (make sure you use the front of your tooth and not the edge of your tooth, which can scratch the pearl). If natural or cultured, rather than acrylic the pearl should feel gritty against your tooth.
Weight Test: Real pearls are heavier than acrylic/glass/fake pearls
The Hole test - For real pearls the hole drilled into them for stringing are small to maintain their value, the fake pearls usually have bigger holes. Another important thing to note is that with fake pearls the pearl surface around the hole could peel off revealing a white round circle around the drilled hole.

In conclusion lets play a game, below are a couple of our fresh water pearl and acrylic pearl sets. Can you spot the difference? You can put your answers in the comment section