Michon Jewelry Blog

People often ask me if the pearls I use in my jewelry are ‘real’ pearls. Many people, however, are not aware that nearly all real pearls on the market today are cultured pearls. Natural pearls - pearls that form in an oyster without any assistance from humans - are extremely rare today. Chances are, if you own a strand of pearls purchased in the last 20 years, you own cultured pearls.
Cultured pearls, often also referred to as farmed pearls, are grown by an oyster around an implanted object put there by pearl farmers. In nature, pearls are formed around a natural object that is lodged inside the shell of an oyster, which irritates the oyster, causing it to excrete nacre, which coats the object to form a pearl. Cultured pearls are formed basically the same way by the oyster, but the object being coated with nacre is placed there for the purpose of forming a pearl by humans.
Once the bead or other object is implanted into the oyster, the pearl farmers wait months or years before removing the formed pearl from the oyster. The longer the wait, the more nacre will form on the pearl, which results in a better quality pearl. Many cultured pearls today are left in the oyster less than a year, resulting in a thin nacre and often a pearl that lacks luster. A pearl that is left in the oyster longer will usually have a more beautiful luster, resulting from the thicker layer of nacre that has formed around the implant.
Consumers who are considering puchasing very expensive pearls, such as Tahitian pearls, may want to have a gemologist test the pearls to see how thick the nacre is. With less expensive pearls, the cost of having pearls tested may be prohibitively expensive compared to the cost of the jewelry. In this case, the things to look for visually are: a rich luster, lack of blemishes on the surface of the pearl, the size of the pearl (larger pearls are usually more expensive than smaller pearls or similar quality), and the shape. Perfectly round pearls are often much more expensive than baroque (non-round) pearls of similar quality, and some people prefer the interesting shapes of baroque pearls. Some non-round shapes are in such high demand that pearl farmers actually implant their oysters with specific shapes in order to create pearls in these new, non-traditional shapes, such as coin and stick shapes.