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"How to care for your jewelery at home"All pearls are created equal- but some are more equal than others. Every natural pearl formed when a tiny piece of dust of ocean debris gets stuck inside of a mollusk shell. Over time, this tiny irritant is coated with layer upon layer of nacre (commonly called mother of pearl). This process can go on for several years before the small nacre coated blob is spit back out into the sea.
Because this process can take so long "cultured pearls" have been developed. While the outside of the pearl is sstill the same nacre of natural pearls, the core is made up of a faster binding agent that allows pearls to grow in as little as 4 months. Cultured pearls look and feel identical to natural pearls- so much so that natural pearls are now quite rare and have almost totally given way to cultured pearls.
Most pearls, be they freshwater or saltwater, are now cultured.
As you can guess, saltwater pearls comes from salty bodies of water like oceans. They tend to be more round than their freshwater cousins and less "ridgy" due to the abrasion of the salt on the nacre. Saltwater pearls come in a variety of colours ranging from dark greys to very light pinks and creams and even yellows.
Saltwater pearls can get quite large, but price is not entirely based on size. Many large pearls have surface irregularities that lead them to be less expensive than smaller, more perfect counterparts.
On the whole the difficulties associated with any sort of culturing project in the open sea make the prices of saltwater pearls higher compared to pearls from a lake or other fresh water source.
Fresh water pearls come in a variety of colours including pinks, lilacs and peaches. As they tend to lighter colours they are also very commonly dyed into more exotic tones like blues, browns and even coal black.
