Pearls are treasures from nature that come in unique shapes, lustrous colours and sizes.

Pearl jewellery is desired by women all across the world because of its unique lustre and natural properties.

Each pearl makes up a unique piece of jewellery and aligns with the interests of all kinds of people.

Let’s look into all the different types of pearls

Types of pearls:

There are 3 different types of pearls that are commonly worn by people as jewellery. They are

• Natural pearls

• Cultured pearls and

• Imitation pearls

Natural pearls:

Natural pearls are found naturally in certain oysters and mollusks in oceans and are created without human intervention. 

You have to check 1000 - 100000 oysters on an average to find one natural pearl. So it has a very high price tag because of its rarity.

Cultured pearls:

Cultured pearls are cultured artificially by pearl farmers by introducing tiny beads that go inside oysters to form a nucleus for the pearl.

Overtime oyster will react to it and form nacre around the bead to protect itself with layers of calcium carbonate crystals to form a pearl.

There are 5 types of cultured pearls mostly used for jewellery, they are

1) Akoya pearls

2) Tahitian pearls

3) South sea white pearls

4) Edison pearls and 

5) Freshwater pearls

Let’s go through each cultured pearl one by one

1) Akoya pearls:

Akoya pearls are grown in cold salt waters in the mountains of Japan.

It’s cultured by introducing a mother of pearl bead into an akoya oyster that produces the pearl.

Akoya pearls are small, perfectly round and have the highest lustre.with sizes ranging from 3mm to 10mm.

They come in white, yellow and blueish silver colours.

Akoya pearls are usually adorned and made famous by celebrities. 

2) Tahitian pearls:

Tahitian pearls come in sizes ranging from 8mm to 16mm.

Tahitian pearls come in mostly peacock greens and pistachios. The most valuable Tahitian pearls will have a blue orient to it.

The stronger the colour, the higher the quality of the pearl.

3) South sea white pearls:

If you love big pearls go for south sea white pearls.

Oysters that create south sea white pearls are large, so the size of the pearls range from 9mm to 20mm.

South sea pearls comes in white, silver and golden colours. They are premium priced because the oyster takes 5 years to cultivate south sea pearls.

Golden south sea pearls are created by gold lipped oyster. They come in light yellow gold, Champagne gold and dark gold variations.

4) Edison pearls:

Edison pearls are the newest member in the pearl family.

Edison pearls are super beautiful with its metallic lustre and comes in deep purple and coppery gold colours.

They are grown by introducing one bead into a mussel only growing one pearl at a time. 

They come in sizes ranging from 10mm to 16mm.

5) Freshwater pearls:

Freshwater pearls grow in mussels found in freshwater rather than oysters. 

They are the most affordable pearls among all the different pearl varieties because they mostly don’t have lustre like saltwater pearls and one mussel can produce more than 20 pearls.

They come in different colours like pinks, peach, blueish greens and whites and sizes ranging from 3mm to 10mm.

These are all the varieties in cultured pearls. Now let’s look into imitation pearls

Imitation pearls:

Imitation pearls looks exactly like real pearls but are made out of glass or plastic. 

They are affordable and comes in a range of unique styles and colours unlike cultured pearls.

With imitation pearls, you can easily find the pearl style that resonates with you the most so you can easily move onto find real pearls that you love.

If you can't identify whether pearls are real or fake, read this.

Other pearl varieties:

Mabe pearls:

Mabe pearls are cultured half pearls that are formed on the outer shells of the oyster.

Mabe pearls has a semi circle shape with a flat side and are best for making different jewellery designs in rings with a front flat surface.

Conch pearls:

Conch pearls are cultured out of queen conch mollusk which is a large edible sea snail.

Conch pearls are rare and are found in every 10-10000 snails.

They come in different coloured pinks and has unique shapes making it not a real pearl. 

Conclusion:

These are all the different types of pearls that are cultured from the oysters and mollusks to make unique pieces of jewellery.

Each pearl jewellery has unique healing properties and tells a different story associated with it.

So choose a pearl that fits your style and especially speaks to your soul.