Cultured Pearls: The Natural Beauty of the Pearl with a Little Help from Man

Unlike natural pearls which are formed naturally in oysters, cultured pearls are created by pearl farmers who inject the oyster gonad with a foreign object and stimulate pearl creation. The result is a near flawless, beautiful pearl every time which can not be said for its natural counterpart.

Natural pearls are rarely perfectly round and unusually contain numerous imperfections that mar their beauty. This is not the case with a cultured pearl. Because of a technique discovered sometime before 1916 when the first harvest of this type of pearls was produced, the pearl industry as a whole was changed forever.

Cultured pearls are able to be harvested in large numbers while still remaining nearly perfect and extremely high quality. The benefit here is that the pearl farmer has some manner of control over how the pearl will look in the end because the process allows the pearl to be designed. Apart from that, it can be extremely difficult, not to mention dangerous, to find natural peals.

It takes roughly two years for a pearl to develop inside an oyster, but modern day pearl farmers layer the development so each year there will be pearls to harvest. This layering process allows the pearls the chance to properly form which greatly enhances the health and survival of the pearl itself.

One of the most common questions about the difference between natural pearls and cultured pearls is whether there are obvious differences to the naked eye. The answer to that question isn’t exactly simple.

Because it is so hard to predict what a natural pearl will look like with some it will be obvious that the pearl is natural and other times it won’t. If the natural pearl is well shaped and has few imperfections – a rarity – it will be very difficult to tell the difference between it and a cultured pearl. Most often, the difference is only evident when the inner nucleus of the pearl is examined with an x-ray.

The majority of pearls on the market today are cultured pearls. While some still prefer the elegance and authenticity of natural pearls, many don’t have the financial means to afford natural pearls. While cultured pearls can still be fairly pricy, they are generally much more affordable. This, of course, if no reflection on the quality of the pearls or the beauty of the pearls, but rather the abundance they are available in.

By creating pearls using science rather than nature, pearl farmers have not only perfected the production of the pearls they produce but also made sure that pearls are much more affordable. While fake pearls are generally plastic and cheap feeling, cultured pearls are every bit as real as a natural pearl – just with that helping hand to get them started.

Cultured pearls are formed using the same process inside the oyster as natural ones. The only real difference between how a natural pearl is created and the way a cultured pearl is created is as I said above – that first step. Aside from being injected with a foreign object to stimulate the creation process, the oyster behaved the same way it would to create cultured pearls – and the results are stunning, near flawless pearls every time.

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