A favorite of fashion jewelry designers because of their unique beauty, fun shapes and affordability, the freshwater pearl is cultivated in mollusks, not oysters, found in fresh water rivers, bays and lakes. Many of the freshwater pearls today are from China.

Cultivation has been developed so a single mussel can be harvested many times, producing several pearls at a time. This process yields more pearls and, lucky for the pearl enthusiast, this abundance allows freshwater pearls to be very favorably priced for any consumer. These pearls form in a myriad of interesting shapes.

The coolest thing about Freshwater cultured pearls is that they come in a spectrum of fantastic colors. Soft alluring colors such as white, peach, pink and other pastels can occur naturally, but it is a widely-accepted practice to treat or irradiate these pearls to create other vibrant colors.

Tags: cultured pearls, fashion, Freshwater, Freshwater pearls, jewelry designers

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Types of Pearls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.