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Cultured pearls make up 95% of all the pearls sold in pearl jewelry. Cultured pearls are created when an irritant such as a grain of sand is placed inside the shell of an oyster or mollusk. The human insertion of an irritant inside the shell by pearl farmers stimulates the oyster to carry out its natural procedure of depositing organic, crystalline and semi-translucent nacre in many layers over the irritant for protection, becoming what we know as a cultured pearl. The art of perfecting a cultured pearl has been employed for centuries and the finest cultured pearls originally come from China. The luster and iridescence of cultured pearls are available in many color hues and contribute to the unique and precious value of the pearl. Cultured pearls are most valuable when perfectly round with a flawless coating and some varieties such as the black or pink cultured pearl can cost the consumer a great deal of money. Cultured pearl shape, size and cleanliness are all factors that contribute to the value of cultured pearl jewelry. Japanese researchers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have developed the technology that efficiently creates cultured pearls. Kokichi Mikimoto, a notable Japanese pearl researcher, developed a technique for creating a perfectly round pearl inside the body of an oyster. Mikimoto cultured pearls are some of the most valuable, elegant and costly cultured pearls on the market. This technology led the pearl industry to be able to cultivate healthy, durable and exquisite pearls en masse that have a long lasting life and intrinsic beauty. Cultured pearls differ from natural pearls in that they are farmed and cultivated to be high quality and flawless. The look of a cultured pearl and a natural pearl are practically the same and the difference between the two can only be discovered with the use of an x-ray, revealing its inner nucleus. Natural pearls are extremely rare and are often imperfect in shape, size and luster. Cultured pearl technology and production has created a vast industry of cultured pearl jewelry, having improved upon Mother Nature’s unique and magical process of pearl creation in order to manufacture millions of perfectly cultured pearls every year.
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