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Pearl Guide

In a few words...
Blue Pearls is pleased to offer you a complete information on pearls.
Before order, we invite you to browse this topic to understand and appreciate four main types of freshwater pearls, Akoya, Tahitian, South Sea Shell.

When you discover our pearl jewelry collection, you will certainly have questions about them, to maintenance or to choice.
This section help you to learn more about pearl jewelry before purchasing act.

Blue Pearls is pleased to offer you a complete information on pearls.
Before purchasing act, we advise you to rzead this section, you will understand better and will appreciate different type of pearls, freshwater, Tahiti, Akoya, theri characteristics, maintenance, quality and beauty.

Pearl Jewellery Buying Guide

To make your better choice in pearls jewelry we have to analyse thier luster, color, shape and diameter.
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Once purchased your pearl jewelry, you must then keep them as new.
These jewels are not only elegant, they are also very precious. Because pearls are organic, they are more fragile than precious stones. You have to take care of them when you wear them, store them or wash them.
But it is simple to keep your jewellery as bright as when you bought it.
Blue Pearls offers suggestions on Maintenance beads requiring no cleaning solutions or expensive tools.

Pearls Guide

Pearls are natural and formed in the tissues of certain shellfish such as oysters.
Natural cultured pearls, that means non-created, without human's help, are very rare, almost when they are perfectly round.
For this reason, most of the beads on the market are cultured pearls. Cultured pearls are formed when one deposits a grain of sand or a tiny ball inside a mollusc. The mollusk, detects that grain of sand and deposits of calcium carbonate layers, the Pearl, to cover it, neutralizing the intruder by setting out creating a pearl.
The mother-of-pearl brings colour and brightness (luster) to pearls.
The beads have sizes, colors and shapes according to their place of origin, their shells, water feature ...
There are four main types of freshwater pearls today, with unique features: freshwater cultured pearls, Akoya pearls, Tahitian pearls, South Sea Shell pearls.

Freshwater pearls

Although most of the pearls are cultivated in oysters living in saltwater, freshwater pearls are cultivated in mussels living in freshwater lakes or ponds. Freshwater pearls are not as round or bright as the other cultured pearls, but they are also more long-lasting.
By using a special harvest process, several pearls can be produced in a same mussel.
Depending on the mussel and on the composition of water in minerals, freshwater pearls have varied colours: white, purple, lavender, peach, orange, ...
Their size is from 2 to 16mm diameter, with a medium size of 7-8mm. Because they are irrgular in color, shape and size, freshwater pearls are the cheaper ones from all cultured pearls and are very popular.
They have a very good price-quality ratio.

Akoya Pearls

Akoya Pearls are the most classic and the most popular ones among the white pearls.
They are also the most bright and have a great radiance.
Akoya pearls are cultivated from a salt-water shell in Japan and China.
They are called Pinctada Fucata. Their size is from 2mm to 11 mm diameter, and the medium size is around 6-7mm.
An Akoya pearl over 7mm is very rare and prices can increase very fast.
Akoya pearls can have pink, gold ou blue colours but they are mainly white with a light pink shade.
Mostly Akoya pearls have the same size, shape and colour, that is the reason why they are so popular and very used in fine jewellery sets.

Tahitian pearls

Tahitian pearls are well-known for their dark colour and their huge size. They are cultivated in French Polynesia lagoons or in the Cook islands. Tahitian pearls are produced by the oysters Pinctada Margaritifera.
Although they are often called black pearls, the colour of Tahitian pearls has a wide range of shades: purple, green, grey, silver, blue. Size can go from 8 to 16 mm diameter, and the medium size is around 9-10mm, smaller than the South Sea Shell pearl, but larger than Akoya pearls.

South Sea Shell or Australian Pearls

South Sea Shell pearls are cultivated in the North of Asutralian waters, South Asia, Indonesia and Philippines.
These pearls are made by the oysters called Pinctada Maxima.
South Sea Shell pearls have the largest range of colours because the oysters produce pearls with silver, golden, or white shades.
They are very varied because their size can be from 9 to 20 mm diameter, for a medium size of 11 to 13 mm.
Moreover, they are remarkable because of their smoothness and their round shape. Because of their satin finish, of the rarety of the Oyster Pinctada Maxima, of the sensitivity of these oysters, South Sea Shell Pearls are the most expensive ones.

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