Maintenance tips
Pearls are the only gems of organic origin in the world, which means that special care is needed to ensure that the pearls’ beauty will last a lifetime.
You should keep in mind that it is important to wear your pearls as often as possible as the natural oils of the body is a natural moisturizer. However, some precautions are to be taken if you want to preserve its luster.
- Avoid any contact between your pearls and perfume, sprays, household cleaners such as dishwashing liquids or hand soap as their chemical properties can damage your pearls.
- Do not hesitate to wipe them from time to time with a soft, chamois cloth in order to remove the substances which could have deposited on your pearls.
- Avoid wearing your jewelry while showering or bathing (swimming pool, jacuzzis, etc.). The hammam and sauna are also not suitable.
- If possible store them in their pouch to avoid rubbing.
Tahiti’s Pearl
The classification
In order to ensure recognized quality for the Tahitian black pearl, pearl classification rules have been defined:
- Diameter : from 8 mm to 16 mm and sometimes up to 20 mm
- Color : an infinite variety of colors (eggplant, pink, pistachio, lavender, pigeon gray, moon gray, silver, gold, champagne, lagoon blue, emerald green, peacock feathers …)
- The form :
- Round: these are perfectly spherical pearls. They are the most valuable.
- Semi-round: these pearls are slightly flattened or extended and are therefore not perfectly round.
- Baroque: these pearls are asymmetrical and irregular in their forms, abstract, fluted…
- Semi-baroque: these pearls take the forms of semi-round pearls, but are irregular, asymmetrical, in their forms.
- Circled: these are pearls which repeat the 4 categories above, but which, on all or part of their surface, develop rings.
The shapes of these pearls are not taken into account in the classification, which takes into account the degree of surface perfection and luster of the pearl, not its color or shape.
Therefore, the most important to define the quality of a pearl and the following classification: < / p>
A: corresponding to the pearl of the most quality. A very nice luster and one imperfection, or a group of slight imperfections, not exceeding 10% of the total surface.
B: a nice to medium sheen, and an imperfection, or a group of slight imperfections, not exceeding 30% of the total surface.
C: medium sheen, slight imperfections not exceeding not 60% of the total surface.
D: low sheen, slight or deep imperfections n ‘not exceeding 60% of the total surface. Beyond these tolerated imperfections and low luster, pearls are classified as scrap and destroyed.
History of the Tahitian pearl
A unique environment for an exceptional animal:
Black-lipped pearl oysters, Pinctada margaritifera have adapted over the centuries in some islands of the South Pacific, which today correspond to French Polynesia and the north of the Cook Islands. Nevertheless, it is mainly in the lagoons of certain Tuamotu atolls, as far as the Gambier archipelago and the famous pearl oyster beds of Mangareva, that the adventure of the pearl of Tahiti was built. With, for double setting, a unique environment and an exceptional mollusk.
“We sometimes wonder how the pearl oysters from Polynesia, once grafted, manage to give pearls of such a color range…. It is then enough to look at the multiple beauty of our lagoons, at the edge of a reef barrier, of a pink sand beach, where the paleest and most fragile blue shares it with the deepest darks make it obvious: the pearl oyster, the pearl and the islands are one. “
The fascination with Polynesian pearls
The first Europeans entered the South Pacific and Polynesian waters in 1521, with Puka Puka, an atoll discovered by chance on January 24 by Fernao de Magalhaes, better known as Magellan. From then on, the ships of the different European kingdoms will constantly sail, with more or less regularity, the great Pacific Ocean. In the logbooks and exploration accounts, the astonishment linked to the discovery of these islands, which we would like to be a prelude to the southern continent, is quickly accompanied by a certain fever for the pearl, this gem so prized; so much so that the Tuamotus, the islands of Desolation, of Disappointment, a dangerous archipelago are gradually becoming… the islands of pearls.
The cultured pearl in Polynesia, the bet succeeded:
The man who is at the origin of the first transplant in 1961 on a hundred pintadines is Jean Marie Domard . Before that, it was not a cultured pearl but a fine pearl (several thousand pearl oysters to hope to find a fine pearl).
This breakthrough is tremendous news on the economic and social aspect of the Territory but above all, essential and indispensable at the level ecological. The days of sacrificing thousands of pearl oysters to harvest a fine pearl are over.
Birth of a pearl
A natural pearl or fine pearl is born when a grain of sand enters the shell of the oyster. She will then cover it with successive layers of mother-of-pearl until the intruder is completely covered, which will take years. Today, all of the “real” pearls sold in the world are cultured pearls. 3 essential steps are necessary in order to obtain a cultured pearl.
The transplant
This involves inserting in the “pearl pocket” a nucleus (it will play the role of the grain of sand) and a graft (piece of organic tissue cut from the mantle of a donor oyster). The shell is ajar to allow the grafting tools to pass. Once inserted into the oyster, the graft fuses with the living tissue and a pearl sac develops around the nucleus: this is the starting point for the future pearl. The transplant operation is a traumatic process. The oysters which survive and retain the nucleus are raised in strings on long lines. It takes about 18 months to form a layer of mother-of-pearl 0.8mm thick. Out of a hundred grafted individuals, only twenty-five to thirty oysters give marketable pearls.
The harvest
Eighteen months after the transplant, it’s harvest without sacrificing the oyster. If the pearl is of exceptional quality, a second graft is performed with a core the size of the pearl harvested. Oysters can be grafted two to three times. The beauty of a pearl depends on the following criteria: its shape, the quality of its surface, its color, its luster….
Spat collection
Oyster spat is the raw material for farms. The collectors (strips of synthetic material) are suspended a few meters below the surface of the lagoon. They stay between 12 and 24 months under water to produce juveniles of 5 to 10 cm. To reach the graft size of between 9 and 11 cm, each shell is pierced at the level of an “ear” then attached to a 2 m cord which will constitute a string suspended from a sub-surface die for 3 to 12 months .
