Pearl Treatment

Pearl Treatment


While pearl is more often than not a product from nature, it is difficult to control every pearl are as beautiful and colorful as we anticipate, therefore, people will use some artificial method to change or modify the appearance of pearls. Only by this way, the most beautiful sides of pearls can bring to us. This is very similiar to the process of a jeweler cutting a raw diamond rocket to get a perfect diamond. Pearl treatements include:

1. Bleaching

Remove, lighten (make whiter) or alter (from dark to light) color by means of chemical and/ or physical agents or light. This process can make the color look more even.

2. Buffing

Remove organic residues from the surfaces of natural and cultured pearls following harvest.

3. Polishing

This technique is applied to natural and cultured pearls to remove some surface blemishes and increase luster.

4. Coating

Spread an artificial layer of substance over the pearl surface or part of the surface. It aims to change pearls color or improve pearl luster. Good-quality pearls do not have to be coated to look lustrous.

5. Filling

If a pearl is partially hollow or has a loose nucleus, people will fill the void with an epoxy substance. That will make the pearls more solid and improve their durability. Fillings can be detected with x-radiographs.

6. Irradiation

When light color pearls are bombarded with gamma rays, the irradiated pearls will achieve an iridescent bluish or greenish gray color. This method work well on freshwater pearls and can be used with dyeing.

7. Oiling

Oiling is also used to improve pearl luster.

8. Dyeing

Any color caused artificially by the application of a dye to pearls can be call dyeing. Dyeing is the most often used technique to get colorful pearls that people want. Dyed pearls are not fakes, but people can get them much easier than pearls of natural color. They fulfill people's desire of special fashion in different occasions while cost less. For their soared price, few people can afford natural black or golden pearl, treated pearl is undoubtedly a great invention to fit different tastes and trends.

Maybe you still want to know which is dyed and which is natural and make the final decision. There is some tests Shecy can provide to help:

- Price test

Some types of true color pearls are typically expensive, e.g. Tahitian pearl, Golden South Sea pearl, Akoya pearl with Rose overtone (Hanadama pearl). If the price is unbelievably low and the merchant doesn't own a special reason for this price. The pearls are probably treated.

- Size test

If a pearl's diameter is smaller than 9mm, and is marked as Tahitian pearl or Golden South Sea pearl, that must be false color. For almost all Tahitian and South Sea pearl, expect for their Keshi pearls, are larger than 9mm. Akoya oysters, on the other hand, can only produce a wide range of pearls below 9mm.

- Drilled-hole test

Look at the drilled hole of a pearl. If the nucleus looks dark and nacre inside looks white, the pearl is dyed. The other clue that indicates dyed pearl is dye concentrating around the drill hole or on some spot of pearl surface.

- Color test

Observe the pearl color carefully. Any of the following clues would indicate whether the pearl is dyed or not.

Dyed color can be dark to black, and without natural overtone.

As a creature of nature, The true color pearl differ from one to the other, if all the pearls in the piece look the exact same color, the pearls are dyed.

- Magnifier test

Examine the surface of the pearl with a magnifier or loupe. If the color in or around the blemishes is stronger and more intense than the rest of the pearl, this pearl is dyed.

How to Tell Real Pearls from Imitation Pearls

How to Tell Real Pearls from Imitation Pearls

Before we explore the world of pearls, we should know how to identify the real one and imitated one.

Types of imitation pearl

- Glass Beads

The beads are cover with as many as forty coats of pearl essence and hand polished between each coat.

- Plastic Beads

Make in the same process as that of glass beads, but is much lighter than glass beads.

- Mother-of-pearl shell beads

These are coated with the same substances as plastic and glass imitations. There are also some occasions that people sell uncoated mother-of-pearl shell beads, and claim those are pearls.

Other terms used to designate imitation pearls are simulated and faux pearls.

Easy tests for real or faux

- Tooth Test

Rub the pearls lightly along the biting edge of your upper front teeth. If they feel gritty or sandy, they are real pearls. If they feel smooth, they are probably imitations.

- Friction Test

Take two pearls then lightly rub one against the other. If they feel gritty or sandy, they are real pearls. If they feel smooth, they are not real.

- Surface Magnification

Magnify the surfaces of the pearls with a magnifier. If they look grainy, the beads are imitation pearls. If they look scaly, maze-like, they are real pearls. (Under 64-power magnification)

imitation pearl surface,tahitian pearl surface

- Flaw Test

Examine the pearls for flaws. If they appear flawless and unnatural perfection, they might be imitation.

- Matching Test

Observe the whole pearl jewelry piece, their shape, luster, size, and color. Imitations can perfectly match while real pearls tend to be variations.

- Overtone Test

Imitation is lack of overtone. Real pearls have various overtones.

- Drilled-Hole Test

The pearl nacre coating is thicker than the coating of imitations. Therefore, you may find a clear dividing line between the nacre and nucleus from the real pearl's drilled-hole.

Visit Shecy Pearls Jewelry Catalogs, feel the beauty of genuine pearls.

Pearl in The Past

Pearl in The Past

• The year was 41 B.C. Mark Anthony, a member of the Roman Triumvirate, was eyeing Egypt to finance his plans of conquest. In one of the most celebrated banquets documented in literature, Cleopatra, the Queen of Egypt, convinces him that Egypt posesses a heritage and wealth that put it above subjugation.

 

• Cleopatra promises Anthony the most expensive dinner in history – failing which, he can conquer Egypt. She crushes a large pearl from a pair of earrings, mixes them in wine and drinks it. A stunned Anthony is offered the same – he refuses, acceding defeat!

 

• Pliny the Elder writes in his famous Natural History that the two pearls were worth an estimated 60 million sesterces, or 1,875,000 ounces of fine silver (with silver at $5 an ounce that would be $9,375,000).

 

• Pearls were much sought after in various cultures throughout the ages. Historically, the most important source for fine natural pearls is the Persian Gulf, where pearl oysters were once found in great abundance off the coast and islands of present day Bahrain. The creamy white pearls from these oysters are still considered the finest natural pearls in the world and command premium prices.

 

• History shows little change in the natural pearl trade for more than 2,000 years. Arab fleets with 35,000 or more divers, often financed by Indian traders, worked the Persian Gulf's oyster beds. Free-diving to 60 feet, they would hold their breath for one to two minutes while grappling for a few oysters. The pearls from the Persian Gulf were ready-to-use gemstones for our ancestors; even today, pearls need no polishing or faceting. The great Pearl age in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe was fuelled by pearls from the Americas. This ‘age’ saw a dramatic increase in the artistic, decorative and religious expression, with the aid of pearls.

 

• By the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the huge demand for pearls left behind ravaged oyster and mollusk populations. It was only in the 1920s that Perliculture, or the process of planting a core into pearl oysters developed and boosted access to pearls.

Types of Pearl

Types of Pearl


Akoya Pearls

 

• The Pintctada Fucata or the Akoya Oyster is found in Japan. The Akoya pearls are saltwater pearls and come from the smallest of all pearl oysters. A fully-grown Akoya oyster ranges from 8-13cms and the pearl it yields tends to be mostly white or cream with hints of pink and green, but can be seen in colors like silver, and rarely in yellow, pink or blue. The Akoya oyster produces more round pearls of very high luster than any other type of pearl oyster with sizes ranging typically from 2mm to 8mm.

 

• When you think of pearls, you see a round, white and lustrous gem - an accurate description of an Akoya pearls If you want further more information on Japanese Akoya pearls please,  

 

Freshwater Pearl

 

• Freshwater pearls, unlike other pearl types, grow in mussels that live in freshwater ponds and rivers and are found in China, Japan, North America and Europe. The Hyriopsis Cuminigi or Triangle Shell mussel is a common source of Freshwater pearls and can yield between 30-40 pearls.

 

• It is believed that the first gem-quality Pearl was a Freshwater one. Freshwater naturals are not as well known as their saltwater counterparts, although comparable pearls from both sources are still similarly priced. Sometimes, the very best freshwater naturals were usually sold as saltwater pearls!

 

South Sea Pearl

 

• The Southern seas host the world’s largest pearl yielding oyster, the Pinctada Maxima. A South Sea pearl can range from 9 - 20mm and are identified by their thick nacre or ‘mother of pearl’ (an organic mixture of Calcium carbonate and crystals) with a satiny luster and a subtle array of colors ranging from white to gold.

 

Tahitian Pearl

 

• The Pinctada Margaritifera or black-lipped oyster produces the Tahitian pearl. About twice the size of Akoya oysters, they produce pearls that range from 8-12mm. The “Tahitian pearls” are found around the islands and atolls of the French Polynesia. These pearls are seldom round; they come in a variety of shapes and a range of metallic colours

What are Pearls?

What are Pearls?

• Built from hexagonal aragonite crystals of calcium carbonate. Pearls are formed in Clams, Oysters and Mussels, and are found in many parts of the world. They are usually white, sometimes with a creamy or pinkish tinge, but may be tinted with yellow, green, blue, brown, or black. Black pearls are often highly valued because of their rarity.

• Pearls are either natural or cultured. Natural Pearls are harvested from the ‘wild’, while Cultured Pearls are cultivated in ‘Pearl farms’. Pearls are harvested from the sea bed (Saltwater Pearls) and Inland water bodies (Freshwater Pearls) - this was the primary source of all pearls till the fag end of the 1800's.

STEP-FORMATION OF NATURAL PEARLS