How to Choose your Leather and Pearl Jewelry Piece

Before choosing your leather and pearl jewelry piece, you should become familiar with the types of pearls available.


Usually, there are three main types of pearls used in jewelry design: Freshwater Pearls, Tahitian Pearls and South Sea Pearls. With Freshwater pearls being the most common and South Sea pearls being the rarest, jewelry made with South Sea Pearls are usually most expensive and freshwater pearl designs are usually a bit more affordable. The prices of Tahitian Pearl jewelry pieces are usually somewhere in the middle.

Freshwater Pearls
Freshwater pearls are formed in a variety of freshwater mussel species that live in freshwater bodies of water like lakes, ponds and rivers. They are found in both hot and cold climates around the world, but most Freshwater pearls come from china. The Freshwater pearl is usually milky white in color. Aside from it's natural beauty, it posses a natural durability helping it to resist chipping and the wear and tear you may expect over time. Because the freshwater pearl is the most common, it is also the most affordable and a piece of freshwater pearl jewelry can usually be found to accomadate any budget.

Tahitian Pearls
Tahitian pearls, also known as "Black Pearls" are highly valued because of thier color. They come from the black-lipped oyster which lives off the coast of Tahiti and other Pacific Island areas. These oysters can grow to be very large making the black Tahitian Pearl larger than the average size pearl. Because they are still considered rare, a jewelry design made with Tahitian Pearls will be a bit pricer that that of freshwater pearls- but well worth the money. The size of the pearls combined with the color- ranging from grayish tone to black- is simply stunning.

South Sea Pearls
South Sea pearls are the most precious and thus the most expensive of all pearls. They come from the silver-lipped and gold-lipped oysters found in the warm waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans . As with the black-lipped oyster that produces the Tahitian pearl, these oysters can grow to be quite large thus producing a larger pearl. The warm waters of the area give the pearls a beautiful satiny luster not found in any other pearl type. The South Sea pearl is also found in a wider variety of colors ranging from white to the highly sought after silver and gold hues that are rare in other pearl types. The beautiful satiny appearance and unusual color spectrum are what make the South Sea Pearl so unique. This uniqueness makes it very valuable. A piece of South Sea pearl jewelry will be more expensive than any other, but it's natural beauty will certainly out shine any other.

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