What is the difference between sea and river pearls

Ele­gant, gen­tle, aris­to­crat­ic. All these def­i­n­i­tions are suit­able for describ­ing pearl prod­ucts. They have been revered by women since ancient times and were con­sid­ered the best dec­o­ra­tion. This is no coin­ci­dence. After all, the delight­ful col­or, extra­or­di­nary radi­ance, exquis­ite shape of the beads attract the eyes of peo­ple at all times and epochs.

Every lover of pearl prod­ucts knows that this stone is formed in a mol­lusk — sea or riv­er. That is why there are sea and riv­er pearls. But is there a qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence between these stones, or is it just a mar­ket­ing ploy? Ini­tial­ly, it seems that there is no dif­fer­ence. How­ev­er, if you look close­ly at the price on the tag, it imme­di­ate­ly becomes obvi­ous that it is. Sea pearls have always been of high val­ue and have nev­er been cheap­er than riv­er ones.

To ver­i­fy its authen­tic­i­ty and be able to dis­tin­guish riv­er pearls from sea pearls, we rec­om­mend pay­ing atten­tion to impor­tant rules. Using them, you will always be con­fi­dent in your choice, and no scam­mer will be able to deceive you.

pearl glitter

At first glance, you can see that sea pearls have a more moth­er-of-pearl lus­ter than riv­er ones. The rea­son for this is salty sea water, which seems to pol­ish the sur­face of the bead dur­ing growth. The water in the riv­er does not have such prop­er­ties, there­fore, riv­er pearls are almost mat­te and look sim­pler.

The bewitch­ing moth­er-of-pearl of pearls from the sea requires the most care­ful han­dling, as it can lose its shim­mer with fre­quent wear. Fresh­wa­ter beads are not very picky in this regard and can remain in their orig­i­nal form for many years.

Bead color

To an inex­pe­ri­enced per­son, it may seem that all types of pearls have a del­i­cate creamy col­or. How­ev­er, this is not always cor­rect.

Pro­fes­sion­als and true aes­thetes can con­fi­dent­ly say that white sea pearls will sur­prise you with their per­fect­ly even white­ness. But the white riv­er stone is often cov­ered with gray­ish or yel­low­ish spots.

Fresh­wa­ter beads have shades from pink to pur­ple, while sea beads have a much more diverse palette, its col­ors are brighter and rich­er.

pearl shape

The dif­fer­ent habi­tat of the beads deter­mines their dif­fer­ence in shape.

Uneven beads with an irreg­u­lar shape are fresh­wa­ter pearls. Among them, it is very dif­fi­cult to find a beau­ti­ful and even one.

Pearls grown in the sea also do not have a per­fect­ly even shape. How­ev­er, they look more attrac­tive and ele­gant.

Price

As we said at the begin­ning of the arti­cle, sea pearls are much more expen­sive than riv­er ones. Let’s fig­ure out what is the rea­son.

First­ly, the terms of cul­ti­va­tion of sea beads are much longer than those of riv­er beads. Since the marine envi­ron­ment is much more expen­sive and no more than three beads can be grown in one mol­lusk. In turn, riv­er oys­ters are able to grow about ten peb­bles.

Sec­ond­ly, the appear­ance of marine beads is more even, white, shiny and aris­to­crat­ic.

In the world of interesting

1. Pearl is the only gem­stone that does not require pro­cess­ing.

2. From Greek, the name Mar­gari­ta is trans­lat­ed as pearl. Peo­ple believed that these beads strength­en the mar­riage and pro­tect the fam­i­ly from dis­agree­ments.

3. It is quite rare to meet beads that have grown togeth­er. How­ev­er, the pearl “Great South­ern Cross” shocked the whole world. After all, the researchers who opened the oys­ter noticed that nine pearls in the shape of a cross had grown togeth­er in it.

4. The famous Coco Chanel said that “pearls are always right.” This made pearl beads the most ver­sa­tile and clas­sic acces­so­ry for many decades.

Choose high-qual­i­ty pearls and let them please you for many years!