A great irony of pearl history is that the least expensive cultured pearl product in the market today rivals the quality of the most expensive natural pearls ever found. The price-value anomaly is ...

Natural versus cultured. Natural pearls are hard to find. They're rare, and this makes them worth more money. But let's rewind for a second. What is a natural pearl, and how are they formed?

Now we see pearls almost as accessories, relatively inexpensive decorations to accompany more costly gemstones. Before the creation of cultured pearls in the early 1900s, natural pearls were so ...

After Mikimoto founder Kokichi Mikimoto invented cultured pearl technology, it made pearls accessible to the masses. Mikimoto’s goal was “to adorn the necks of all women around the world with ...

An curved arrow pointing right. South Sea pearls are the largest cultured-pearl variety, sometimes reaching over 20 millimeters in diameter. The Pinctada maxima oyster can take up to five years to ...

Saltwater, damp salt air, and chlorine can also be harmful to cultured pearls, whereas sand is extremely abrasive, so be sure to remove your pearls before taking a dip. White pearls are classic ...

I think that's something very impressive. It's a metal component that's about 1 meter wide, with a boxy shape.

Sandra Alexandra crafts her pieces in her London studio, playing on a fascination with natural materials such as cultured pearls or lamp work glass for fun and relaxed forms. In the Froot Loop and ...

For at least 164,000 years, oysters have been part of the human diet, but people have been finding pearls in oysters for much longer — as early as 2300 BC when Chinese royalty received them as ...