Technicolor Jewelry: Green, Blue, Lavender, and Pink Pearls
Though style setters like Jackie O are iconic in their white pearls, it is now possible to wear green, blue, lavender, champagne, and pink pearls. The best ones can compete with the luster and tone of white pearls, because these technicolor gems are cultured in the same way and their hues are natural. Theyre not from the ocean, however, these are freshwater gems.
Mussel species are found in rivers throughout the American Midwest, Texas, Oklahoma, and the Mississippi River system and its tributaries. Generally the mussels dont look like much from outside: thick, wrinkly, coarse, odd-shaped creatures. The names are not too much better; yet, it turns out that expensive pearl treasures come out of species like the pimple back mussel, pigtoe, and heelsplitter. The wartyback and heelsplitter generally produce pink pearls.
Native Americans knew well the value of the mussels, not only as food, but also as the repository of the occasional jewel. Burials sometimes contained pearl jewelry, and the father of Pocahontas owned many pearls received as tribute.
By the 1850s, as settlers began to move west, they also began to exploit the freshwater mussel population. Some historians liken this pearl rush to the California gold rush. A second pearl rush was slightly more mundane, when manufacturers along the Midwests rivers implemented new technology to make buttons out of mussel shells. It was this industry that led to a major decline in mussel stocks, but with the invention of plastic, pearl button factories collapsed.
Today, harvest of wild mussels is banned or limited in most of the United States. Pearl farmers must harvest mussels when and where it is legal, than transport the animals to their farms. Mussels must be raised in very clean, flowing water. Farmers can identify the different species that produce blue, lavender, green, or pink pearls.
The blue and pink pearls produce perhaps the most startling true color. Indeed pink pearls are second only to white and black pearls in popularity. Because freshwater pearls are more likely to come in odd shapes than their saltwater cousins, and because of a variation in hues, it is quite difficult to come up with a well-matched string of colored pearls. Usually, these gems are used in contemporary style jewelry.
Is That Color Natural?
And yet there are more colorful pearls for sale than are produced in the farms of North America. This is because it is possible to dye white pearls. If the color passes subtle and goes to vibrant, you may have a dyed pearl.
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