How Pearls are Made

One of the most popular items used in jewellery is the pearl. This beautiful and dainty object is considered to be an organic jewel that symbolises beauty, purity, and calm.

A natural pearl starts off its life as a piece of sand, organic material, or parasite that enters the mantle tissue of certain species of molluscs. Because the animal’s mantle is so soft, this piece of debris becomes an irritant. To protect itself, the mollusc covers the irritant with layers upon layers of calcium carbonate in the form of a mineral called aragonite to make the debris smoother. Each layer is held by an organic compound called conchiolin. Over time, the combination of conchiolin and aragonite, called nacre, eventually becomes thick and large enough to be recognisable as a small, strong, iridescent sphere, which we now call a pearl.

Cultured pearls start their life in a similar way but with a slight alteration. Instead of debris, a transplantation of a tiny piece of graft or the addition of a spherical bead into a mollusc’s mantle is used to initialise pearl production.