How Honora Freshwater Pearls Are Grown

Japan really owned the pearl business from about 1920 to about 1995 China learn how to start cultivating these pearls in the mid-70s but they didn't really get it until the early 90s where they became around Chinese pearl industry really started with little rights crispy pearls there were pearls that literally look like rice krispies and as the years went on the Chinese got better and better at creating and figuring out how to grow their harvests became better farmers and we started to see these productions of very smooth very bright very clean well cultivated pearls and we knew the world was going to change this was a game changer nothing like this had ever been seen before and year after year the pros continued to get larger better and rounder these productions are enormous there are thousands of small farmers bringing small productions to these large processes billions of pearls are grown and cultivated in China now over 95% of the world's pearls are produced in China and that's an incredible fact when you think that literally 20 years ago this industry didn't even exist Jolin I went to the pearl farms about five years ago for the first time we actually visited a farm where actually no Americans have ever been before we were the first two Americans to visit we go to Shanghai or Hangzhou sometimes drive five six seven hours into the wilderness to get into these very remote areas where the order is very pristine and we can grow cultured pearls I saw things that I've never ever dreamed possible it was like going on the most incredible treasure hunt in my entire life the area is so serene you'll see kind of a large like huge bodies of water some of them are so big that you can almost not see over the horizon but a lot of small ponds and small lakes and rivers where we see floats the floats can be made out of balsa wood even we've seen them use old soda bottles okay to prop up the nets that are laying in the water that are growing these cultured pearls for years and years and years cultured pearl just means that man placed the irritant inside the mollusk and then nature takes it from there the unique thing about freshwater pearls is that we just start with a tiny piece of tissue and layer upon layer of nacre is surrounded about the pearl our pearls are about 95% nacre nacre is calcium carbonate when you take the science out of it what it is it's the layers of pearl material minut layers that surround a nucleus that we start a cultured pearl process by growing in order to protect itself what it does it secretes calcium carbonate which is nacre and that's what forms a pearl layer upon layer of maker around this irritant that man has placed in the mollusk these pearls begin to grow instantly we've literally opened some after 15 minutes and you can see how the tiny bits of tissue are balled up immediately by the skin of the mosque as it envelops it begins to make it a little bit round and then will begin to create these layers of pearl maker for years and years and years around it each particular layer makes a pearl more durable it makes the pearl more bright and makes the pearl more exciting as it comes out the great thing about mollis is as they get older they get better as humans okay we look at our skin degrading as we get older from Alice their skin actually improves and as they get older the sheen the luster from the pearl just gets better and better and when you pull out a girl it is so bright it almost looks like it's metallic in nature that's how bright the luster is on a pearl like that you

Channel: Day's Jewelers

Views: 112,008

Keywords: Honora, Freshwater, Pearls, Chinese Pearls, Colored Pearls, Cultured Pearls, Cultivated Pearls, Designer Pearls

Id: wDOb-pG-Bgc

Length: 3min 56sec (236 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 01 2012