How to Care for Pearls and How to determine if they are real

How to care and store pearls

* Silver polish damages pearls. If you string pearls with sterling silver and the silver tarnishes, you'll discolor the pearls if you try to clean the silver. Store the jewelry in a tarnish-resistant pouch.
* Pearls need air to maintain their luster. Take them from their pouches from time to time. Do not store pearls in plastic baggies; they allow no air inside.
* Do not expose pearls to deodorant, perfume, or scented hand or body lotions. Put on makeup and spray scents before putting on your pearls.
* After wearing pearls, wipe them gently with a lint-free cloth before storing.


The fake pearl is very obvious. At the hole in the bead, there is usually an accumulation of pearlized coating. If there is not, there is chipping in the "pearl" color around the hole. This stuff flakes in the cheaply manufactured ones.

Real pearls are valuable and they display the natural beauty of pearls. They are also called “faux”, “costume” or “imitation”. They can be made of glass, plastic, or fish-scale imitations. There is nothing in them that rightly allow them to be called pearls. They are not naturals nor cultured.

Fake pearls are made to look like expensive Akoya or South Sea pearls, with a price range from a few dollars to a few hundred dollars.

Crystal pearls
Crystal pearls are glass pearls formed around a crystal foreign object usually called a “seed.” They simulate the luster of real pearls and are quite lovely as beads. Their advantages include lower cost, a larger hole, and perfect symmetry. Personally, I love crystal pearls but make sure my buyers know these are not real pearls.

Here are some tips on how to distinguish real pearls from fakes:

1. Real pearls have fingerprint-like surface ridges when viewed under magnification. Fake pearls have bubbles or matte patterns on the surface when viewed under magnification.

2. Real pearls have body color enriched by an overtone color. (Some pearls have very strong overtones while some pearls have weak overtones). Fake pearls only have one body color. Their colors look flat and lack depth.

3. Real pearls reflect light beautifully and their luster looks very natural. The luster of fake pearls doesn't look natural. It looks like glass.

4. When viewing real pearl strands under light, you can see a slight difference between each pearl in terms of size, overtones and surface quality. Even top quality cultured pearls with perfect surface have tiny thin layers when looking at them closely.
For fake pearl strands, each pearl looks like the exact copy of another. Their surfaces look perfect.

5. Real pearls are cold when you touch them. You don't feel the coolness when touching fake pearls. They always have the same temperature as the room air.

6. When rubbing pearls across your teeth, real pearls feel gritty while fake pearls feel smooth.

7. Real pearls are heavy in weight. Fake pearls are light in weight.

8. Real pearls show smoothness around drilled holes. Fake pearls show roughness or bump around drilled holes, as if the pearls have been melted during drilling.


Shannon Schow
www.shannonschow.artfire.com
Custom Handmade Jewelry
Plenty of beads in stock to make what your heart desires.
Online Classes available. In house Classes available
Contact me for details
dymnddesign@sbcglobal.net
www.shannonproductions.blogspot.com