Both natural and cultured pearls have textured surface due to their layered nacre structure. So when you rub the pearls lightly against each other or on your front teeth, they feel a little gritty. Fake or imitation pearls, however, usually feel smooth or glassy.
Real pearls will feel incredibly smooth and have a unique texture. The pearls are likely fake if they are rough or have an uneven surface. You can also look for any blemishes or ridges on the surface of each pearl. Real pearls will typically be perfectly round with no visible flaws or irregularities.
If the pearl is natural, it should feel gritty. A fake pearl will feel slippery and smooth. Some fake pearls will not even massage because they have been created using glass or synthetic materials.
Tiny Imperfections On the Pearl Surface Are Normal
Blemishes such as spots, wrinkles and abrasions do not usually affect the durability of a pearl and are very common. However, the value of a pearl depends on how visible these flaws are.
Both natural and cultured pearls have textured surface due to their layered nacre structure. So when you rub the pearls lightly against each other or on your front teeth, they feel a little gritty. Fake or imitation pearls, however, usually feel smooth or glassy.
Natural or cultured pearls have small irregularities and ridges that are a result of the natural process by which they were made—making each pearl unique. “Synthetic pearls have a much smoother and plastic-like feeling to them,” explains Lawler.
Bumps or welts are pearl flaws that you can easily see with your naked eye. They are irregular bumps that appear when a lot of nacre is secreted to form a pearl.
The cleaner the surface of the pearl, the more valuable it is. Look for an absence of disfiguring spots, bumps or cracks on the surface of a pearl, also known as "cleanliness." Notice that the highest quality pearls have a sharp, mirror-like reflection.
A genuine pearl will usually have small indentations around the pearl, rather than being perfectly round and smooth. Although they can make a real pearl into a perfect shape, they are often left in their most natural state.
Baroque pearls are pearls with an irregular, non-spherical shape. Shapes can range from minor aberrations to distinctly ovoid, curved, pinched, or lumpy shapes.
Pearls are naturally not as smooth and may contain some imperfections in their surfaces, such as tiny scratches, spots of colors, or bumps called “pearling.” The more perfect the pearl, the less likely it is to be real. Additionally, fake pearls will often have a rough, chalky texture with visible flaws on the surface.
Real pearls wear out and age, what is visible in getting mat, cracking, peeling, chipping off, and finally scattering into a fine powder. The life of a natural pearl is estimated at about 100-150 years, but there are few specimens up to several hundred years.
Real Pearls Have Imperfections
There is almost always an imperfection such as an issue with the shape, a slight indentation or slightly off color to it (even if ever so slight). There is a reason why “perfect” pearl necklaces can set you back tens of thousands of dollars, if not more.
One very simple way to tell if a pearl is real is by lightly rubbing it against the biting edge of a tooth. A real pearl will feel gritty, sandy or slightly rough. A fake pearl will feel smooth and glassy.
The qualities that determine the overall value of a natural or cultured pearl or a piece of pearl jewelry are size, shape, color, luster, surface quality, nacre quality, and—for jewelry with two or more pearls—matching.
Freshwater pearls are cheaper because they are easier to extract, making sea pearls more valued. Why? Sea pearls are larger, more beautiful in shape, luster, smoother surface and, of course, much more expensive than freshwater pearls.
Tiffany does not have it's own grading system (at least one that it publicly acknowledges), but Tiffany strands are generally AA quality on the Mikimoto grading standard and Tiffany prices its strands directly in line with with Mikimoto AA strands (which would be $5,400 for an 18" 7x7. 5mm strand).
This is because a real pearl has small ridges on its surface. These ridges may not be visible to the naked eye. However, experts and jewelers can check the “natural flaws” in a pearl using a magnifying object. In real pearls, these same ridges can be felt using the teeth.
Do pearls lose their luster or become dull? It's possible that pearls can lose their shimmer and shine over time, but you can prevent it from happening by learning how to clean your cultured pearl necklaces, bracelets, rings and earrings.
Real Pearls are Heavier than Fake Pearls
One of the very first differences between real and fake pearls is no other than their weight. If you grab a real pearl necklace in one hand and a faux pearl necklace with the same amount of gems in the other, more often than not, the real pearls will feel heavier.
Most people think that oysters are the only shellfish that produce pearls, but that isn't the case as both mussels and clams also have the same capability - although it's much more rare. What do natural pearls look like? Natural Pearls tend to be a darker cream color with more hints of yellow or champagne undertones.
The most familiar colors are white and cream (a light yellowish brown). Black, gray, and silver are also fairly common, but the palette of pearl colors extends to every hue.
Perfectly Round pearls are the rarest and most valuable shape there is! Pearl producing mollusks are usually nucleated with spherical bead nuclei (in the hopes that the resulting pearl will be a perfect Round). This round nucleus is inserted into the host mollusk, which then encircles it with a pearl sac.