The ideal of beauty and perfection is impeccable purity, inner light, spherical shape… Pearls fascinate people with their beauty! And, of course, people wanted to try to grow this miracle on their own, having studied the laws of nature.
Growing pearls has become a real creative process! The variety of colors, shades and shapes surprises and delights! Many of my articles are devoted to different shades of pearls, but today I will tell you about amazing forms!
There are two main types of cultured pearls: the germinal bead and the germinating tissue.
Nucleation is the process that begins the growth of cultured or cultured pearls. It involves inserting something into a mother-of-pearl-producing mollusc to induce pearl production.
This core can be either just a tiny strip of mantle tissue on its own, or a strip of mantle tissue plus a bead or other shaped base. In any case, a pearl sac grows, secreting mother-of-pearl, and a pearl is formed inside this sac.
Pearls with embryos in the tissues are basically freshwater pearls, which are therefore mother-of-pearl, hard pearls without beads inside.
Hard mother-of-pearl, or cloth-only embryonated pearls, was the first type of freshwater pearl cultivated by the Chinese.
1. They appeared on the jewelry markets in 1981. The first Chinese freshwater pearls with tissue nucleators were called "rice flakes"
2. The next big breakthrough was non-round, hard-skinned pearls known as "potato" pearls. They appeared on the market in 1992. The surface not only became smooth, but also became more rounded.
3. Much more symmetrical button pearls became commonplace by 1992-1994. They were sometimes called "loaf" pearls. They were round, like a fluffy bun.
A unique feature of freshwater pearls is the pearl in the form of rods or rods, which is a radical departure from the form of cultured pearls and a new way of rethinking pearls.
Wand pearls are almost a transitional form between cloth pearls and pearls with a beaded core. The claw pearl and the cross pearl are subtypes of the wand pearl.
Baroque pearls became more popular. Some baroque forms have their own names:
- Rose bud pearl.
- Circular Pearls (as if a tool had walked around the circumference, but these are natural growth zones).
- Pearl Keshi.
And now consider the shape of pearls with a core of beads
Beaded core pearls include all Tahiti and South Sea pearls, Akoya pearls, and many modern large freshwater pearls.
During the first few decades of Chinese freshwater pearl culture, hard mother-of-pearl without a round pearl core was the big star of the freshwater pearl world.
But from the beginning, the Chinese also worked on nucleated pearls and used various forms of carved mussel shells to re-nucleate old mussels.
Round, square, diamond-shaped, heart-shaped and star-shaped kernels.
Here are just a few fun shapes created from freshwater pearls with bud formers.
Since the earliest days of Chinese pearl culture, they have been experimenting with nuclei, trying to copy the embryos of Japanese freshwater pearls coming from Lake Biwa and later from Lake Kasumiguara.
Instead of round cores, the Chinese started with cores made from flat shapes that had never before been associated with any kind of pearl.
The extremely popular coin-shaped pearl was an invention of this trend, which also used square and diamond shapes.
Heart shaped pearls and star shaped pearls are also part of this range and are very popular shapes in the freshwater pearl world.
As with non-germ pearls, the vast majority of these flat shapes are sold to bead makers and beaded jewelry makers.
Fireball pearl - fireball
It turns out that it was not easy to get a round core shape, and for many years mussels with round cores produced so-called "fireball pearls" because their mother-of-pearl not only covered the core, but seeped beyond it. These strange tailed pearls were often the most striking colors humans have ever seen!
