In honor of our favorite twins, I wanted to talk about twin pearls. Yes, it is a real thing… twin pearls! But first, let me tell you about these cuties: Elle and Chas are the daughter and son of Abby, our Head of Production. Their birth, two years ago, changed everything for us. I was …
A pearl cocoon? As in, “a pupal casing made by moth caterpillars and other insect larvae.” (Thank you Wikipedia!) Yes, a gold and pearl cocoon, as in an insect cocoon, is exactly what I am talking about! Check it out: This is the work of a caddisfly larvae. These young caddisfly build a cocoon …
As I continue my pursuit of analogies, lets discuss pearls and pecans. I have explained how pearls are like wine (the truly great ones stand the test of time). Cultured pearls are like grapes, dependent on many environmental factors, experiencing both good and bad years, high and low years and costing a lot of money …
Cultured pearls are like grapes! Which, is pretty funny to think about, since I just wrote a post on how pearls are like wine. After writing my last blog, I began to think about how cultured pearls are grown, how they have good years and bad years, high yields and low yields. For this and …
Save your pennies because a really big pearl is coming up for auction. You might have noticed I love chatting about how natural pearls are very popular on the auction scene these days. Buyers are loving natural pearls and their prices are staggering. Well, Woolley & Wallis, a British auction house, has announced that a really big …
Why are natural pearls so hard to find? It seems pretty sensible that there would be tons of natural pearls produced each year. Right? If pearls are formed by an irritant, bacteria or other organism invading the soft inner body of a mollusk, well, surely that happens all the time! At least that is what …
Why you will not find a pearl at dinner… There is a pretty good reason why you will not find a pearl at dinner tonight. That’s right, eat all of the oysters you can and you will not find a pearl. Why not? Oysters produce pearls, right? And if you are eating oysters, they might, …
Why don’t all bivalve mollusks produce pearls? Bivalves use the same material they use to make their shell to make a pearl. If they can make a shell, why not make a pearl? One of my favorite stories is the one about the Tennessee River pearl diver Kenneth. Now, in Tennessee, divers dive for mussel …
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“I thought oysters produce pearls!” is a phrase I hear a lot, especially when I talk about freshwater pearls. It is true, oysters do produce pearls! But, they are not the only species that produce pearls! Mussels, clams and scallops can produce pearls too. So can sea snails! Oysters are part of a larger phylum …
Do pearls burn? It is honestly a question I have never thought about. Maybe it is the woman in me? I imagine my sons might wonder about this but it has personally never crossed my mind until I came across this video of a man burning a pearl. Here we see a man applying a …
Pearls are cultured everyday. It is a very organic process which can be difficult to control and yet certain aspects can be manipulated. For example, pearl color. Some pearl colors are considered more desirable than others so how do you get that cultured pearl color? This was such a fascinating concept which was of great …
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I have been talking alot about pearl treatments, dying pearls, tinting pearls and more so what are the natural pearl colors? That is what we really want to know! Well, first things first, how does a pearl get its color? We do have a variety of natural pearl colors and they all originate from the …
