Pearls

I came across a great diagram showing a cross section to show the difference in the makeup cultured and natural pearls. A cultured pearl has a nucleus of a bead (usually plastic) that the nacre grows onto, which will vary in thickness - ideally around .4mm. A natural pearl is layers upon layers of nacre that grow around natural debris. From the outside they may look the same, but the structure is definitely different!

While scrolling through pages of pearls today for the blog I definitely had in my mind that natural pearls are more expensive than cultured pearls; however I also learned that apart from a very small collectors market in natural (wild pearls), all pearls bought and sold on the retail market are cultured pearls. If interested you can read more about the varieties of cultured pearls HERE

I came across this beautifully gradation of pearls necklace. If you have $50,000 to spend on a necklace, then look no further!

 

 

In my heart my love of whimsy always drives attraction to pieces, and when a friend tagged me in a post of theirs on Instagram I remembered that I should share what I can assuredly say is one of my favourite use of pearls in jewellery by Petrolnilla

Alexis