Those of you born in June are blessed to have the pearl as your birthstone. The pearl is the oldest known gem and has been a symbol of unblemished perfection since ancient times. According to ancient legend, pearls were thought to be the tears of the gods. Pearls have been a passion and even an obsession of people throughout the ages. They have even been ground up and used in cosmetics and as a medicine.

Pearls are formed inside mollusks such as oysters and mussels. They are formed when an irritant, such as a parasite, tiny fish, small stone or bit of sand gets inside the shell of the mollusk. A substance called nacre is secreted around this object. As layer upon layer of nacre coats the irritant, a pearl is formed. Light reflected from these overlapping layers produces a characteristic iridescent luster. This process of building a solid pearl can often take seven or eight years.

Because natural pearls are fairly rare, a process was developed in which a piece of shell or bead is placed inside a mollusk to stimulate the production of nacre. This process results in a cultured pearl, which accounts for about 90 percent of the pearl industry. 

 

Natural pearls are found in The Persian Gulf as well as in the waters off Japan, the South Pacific Islands off northern Australia, and the coasts of Panama, Venezuela, and California.  Most of the cultured pearl industry is in Japanese and Australian coastal waters. These gems come in a variety of colors, from pure white to pink, yellow, gray and black as well as in different shapes and sizes. The color of the pearl depends on the type of mollusk and the water where the mollusk lived.

 

Some of the many types of pearls are listed below:

Natural Pearls - made with no human interference.
Cultured Pearls -  made when an irritant or foreign substance is intentionally inserted into a living mollusk.

Baroque Pearls - pearls that have irregular shapes.
Blister Pearls -  pearls that grow attached to the inside of the mollusk's shell. 
Freshwater Pearls - pearls that form in freshwater mollusks and resemble puffed rice.

Shell Pearls - pearls made from the shell of oysters or mollusks, also known as mother of pearl. They are made in a process similar to how pearls are cultured, but in a factory rather than grown inside an oyster or mollusk. These pearls are considered to be high grade replicas made out of the same material as cultured pearls.

 

Happy Birthday to all our readers born in June!

 

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