How to identify real pearls
What are real pearls?
Natural pearls ≠ wild free-range pearls
A real pearl is produced by pearl-bearing oysters either in fresh or salt water. This organic gem can either be cultured or natural. But today, about 90-95% of all commercial pearl jewelry comes from cultured pearls. Natural pearls formed without human intervention are extremely rare, they are mostly residing in collector’s markets and estate jewelry shops. So when you hear someone mention the word “natural pearls” in a store, you know what they really mean is that these are real and not fake.
Cultured pearls are pearls that come from a mollusk, whether saltwater or Freshwater varieties. These pearls are nucleated with either a small mother of pearl bead nucleus or a square 1mm piece of mantle tissue, which irritates the mollusk into forming a pearl sac, and then subsequently coating the "seed" with crystalline nacre layers, eventually forming a pearl .
Because the resulting pearls are a product of a natural process, they will invariably have small inclusions, variations in nacre depth, luster, color/overtone and shape.
This means that each and every single pearl harvested is a totally unique, individual gemstone with its own character and personality. Like snowflakes, no two pearls are totally, completely the same.
What are fake pearls?
Synthetic pearls are usually either coated plastic, glass or crystal beads, they have a pearly coating to give a similar appearance to real pearls. The attributes that almost all synthetic pearls have in common are smooth, somewhat plastic-looking surfaces.
- The pearls will exhibit little to no overtone but some will feature an artificial iridescence that is fairly easy to spot that will look "oily" to the eye and overly intense.
- Cultured pearls feature soft iridescence, synthetic pearls’ iridescence can appear over-saturated in color.
There are three major types of synthetic pearls commonly found on the market at the moment (although new, hard-to-spot fakes, and "off-brand" synthetics are always being experimented with and introduced). The ones you should know about are:
- Majorica Pearls
- Shell Pearls
- Swarovski Crystal Pearls
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Easy-to-use methods to identify pearls:
- Touch and feel the temperature
Touch them and feel the temperature. Real pearls are cold to touch for the first couple of seconds before warming up against your skin. Fake plastic pearls have the same temperature as the room temperature and you don’t feel the coolness when you touch them. However, fake ones that are made of glass beads can be cool to touch to start with. But it tends to take them longer to warm up against your skin than real pearls.
- Look for tiny irregularities
When you examine real pearls closely or under magnification, you’ll notice tiny irregularities and ridges on each pearl’s surface. In a strand of cultured pearls, you can always see very tiny differences between them, even when they are top quality and well matched.
If the pearls are completely perfect and identical in terms of shape, size, colour and surface characteristics, they are probably fake.
In addition, cultured and natural pearls reflect light differently from the fake ones. The lustre of fake pearls has a glassy look and is unnatural.- Examine the colour
Both natural and cultured pearls often have an overtone, a translucent colour that appears on the outer surface of a pearl. It is especially noticeable among fine quality pearls. You’ll see a hint of pink, green over the main pearl colour.
If you notice the pearls have only one uniform colour and are lack of depth, they are likely to be fake.
But it’s worth noting that some real pearls have no overtone either. So this method alone cannot tell the authenticity of a pearl.
- Observe the shape
Most real pearls are rarely round. Even with a strand of real pearl necklace that is perfectly round, you can still see some slight differences in their pearl shapes.
So whatever the pearl shape, if you find them completely identical, it’s probably a sign that they’re made by machines.
- Rub the pearls to check surface feel
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.
- Feel the weight
Real pearls are normally heavier than the fake ones. But the only exception with this weight test is in the case of solid glass beads. They weigh much heavier than natural or cultured pearls. So you’ll want to use other methods mentioned here for your judgement.
- Check drill holes
The drill holes in real pearls are usually very small whereas those in imitation pearls are often larger.
Under magnification, the coating around the drill holes of fake pearls is normally thin and looks like a shiny paint. You can often see flakes or chipped coating around the drill holes that will eventually peel off.
It’s important to remember that all the methods above cannot be used alone to reach a conclusive judgment on whether or not a pearl is real. It’s always useful to combine several of these methods together to detect fake pearls.
You can also perform advanced tests by having them tested in a gemological laboratory for a more conclusive result.