If you are looking to buy a pearl necklace, then doing a bit of research will pay off big time. Pearls are great to look at and have been used as jewelry for hundreds of years. In fact, they used to be an adornment, reserved only for the very wealthy. That was naturally because of the way natural pearls are formed; a small piece of sand encased within a mussel or oyster for up to 10 years.

Today, natural pearls like that are still very valuable but becoming increasingly scarce due to overfishing and destruction of the shellfish’ natural habitat. Cultured specimens are organic pearls, often freshwater, which resemble the quality, look and feel of the natural grown. For this reason, they are very popular and much cheaper to buy than natural pearls. The Chinese mastered cultivation 700 years ago, but the West caught up much later. Pearls come in almost all colors of the rainbow: white, black, brown, cream, pink, silver and gold. The pearl’s color is determined by the water and environment, as well as the kind of shellfish in which the pearl was formed.

The lustre is the most important factor. Lustre is the combined effect of the inner glow and outer brilliance. These two combined, make the pearl seem solid and dense. If it lacks lustre, it may seem brittle, chalky and dull. The smoothness of the pearl’s surface is the second most important factor. A pearl will always have blemishes, as it is grown organically, but the high quality pearl, will only have minute faults, visible only from up close. The shape of the pearl is also very important. Few pearls are born perfectly round. It is much more common for pearls to be shaped a bit differently. The rounder the pearl, the higher quality it is considered. The color of the pearl is not really a determining factor for a pearl. That is mostly a preference of whomever is the buyer.