Tahiti "Mother of Pearls" Unraveled

Nowadays, those people who are wearing pearls are in fact wearing CULTURED- pearls. Cultured pearls are thought to have astrological influence, because cultured pearl is NOT REAL, but it's some from of pre-formed shell-ball embed. Cultured pearl contains some percentage of real pearl, which means that its not completely natural, but just a slight covering over the real pearl material called nacre.

During ancient years, 'Pearl' was referred to only 100% natural pearls because until recently cultured pearls did not exist. However, nowadays other than the gemologist, all the people consider that the hollow "cultured pearl" is the real thing, and this is all due to mass ignorance.

Tahitian Pearls are the best natural pearls that are obtained from the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Tahitian Pearls are obtained from Black lipped oysters that have a tendency to grow much larger in the warm waters than in other areas. This enables them to produce larger pearls. Tahitians use large protected lagoons that are free from pollution to farm the pearl oysters. To product best quality Tahitian pearls, the oyster beds are watchfully controlled for water temperature and nutritional levels. Their ecological and natural conditions are also carefully monitored.

Formation of Tahitian Pearls

Tahitian pearls are formed from pearl oyster secretions called as aragonite. Aragonite is a structure of calcium carbonate. The shell's interior is layered by the aragonite, which produces the Tahiti "mother-of-pearl" lining on the inside of the shell. The interior of the pearl is formed from a small three-sided prism.

Layers of Tahiti pearls are formed due to the constant aragonite secretion of the oyster. The layers thus formed are about one micron or 0.001 mm thick and more or less four layers are produced in a day. Oysters that produce Tahitian pearls generally live for about two years, thus producing about two thousand layers. Therefore, Tahitian pearls have more layering as compared to most other pearls. These pearls emit a shimmering appearance when light reflects through the thin layers of Tahitian pearls due to the light refraction. Tahitian pearls are popular for the shimmer and brilliant colors.

Criterion

Pearls evaluation is based on certain criterion.

Dimension - The larger the pearl the more expensive it is. Tahitian pearls are much larger than the regular Chinese or Japanese pearls. Tahitian peals are about 9mm and 14mm. The largest Tahitian pearl measures more than 20.92mm or 13/16 of an inch in diameter and is called the Robert Wan Pearl.

Form - Even though round pearls are the most sought after, they also come in semi-round and semi-baroque. Round Tahitian pearls generally differ more than 2% from being sphere-shaped.

Quality - This is determined by the imperfections and the shine.

Luminosity - Tahitian pearl's shimmering quality and luster is highly noticeable as compared to other pearls.

Exterior transparency - Tahitian pearl purity is influence by marks, scratches or irregularities on the exterior.

Pearl width - This depends on the amount of microscopic layers that surrounds the nucleus.

Colors

Tahitian, the mother of pearls comes in black. Tahitian Pearls also contain highlights of silver or even a tinge of gold. These pearls are unique in their color combinations, as they also can include the overtones of purple, blue and sometimes even green. Therefore, go ahead and select striking looking jewelry that is fashioned with gemstones and metals combined with a variety Tahitian Pearl shades!

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