Freshwater potato pearls

Freshwater pearls are pearls which are harvested from freshwater mussels and shells. Natural freshwater pearls are never perfectly round. They have many different shapes like round, oval, coin, nuggets, baroque and semi baroque, the most common and widely used for jewelry is potato pearls.

Potato pearls does not have a specific shape they can be of any shape from round to elliptical, due to their oval shape potato pearls are sometimes referred as semi round pearls. These freshwater are usually harvested from China. These pearls are side drilled without any hard edge or flat side.

While grafting shell for freshwater pearls nucleus is not inserted inside shell instead of that small square piece is inserted in upper valve. Twist is given to mantle for to give round shape to pearls. A single mollusk can produce up to 50 pearls. Freshwater pearls are durable, chipping resistant and do not undergo
degeneration easily.

These freshwater pearls are known for their wide range of color, they are available in white, pink, red, silver, copper, golden, lavender, purple, Blue and yellow. Most popular and desirable colors are pastel pink, lavender, purple and rose color. Different colors depend upon various conditions like mussel species, genetics, water quality and position of pearl in shell. Due to various colors and diversity in shape it is very difficult to find perfectly matching pearls for strand.

Freshwater potato pearls can be used alone in pearl strand or you can use them with large pearls. Many times Potato pearls are used as spacers. If you are making jewelry for children you can use colors like Teal green, olive green, baby pink or sky blue. For fancy jewelry you can use Silver, golden, green or red.

For Classic jewelry choose from White, Black, pink, Turquoise. For more information on Freshwater potato pearls visit www.orientalpearls.net/strands_potato.php