Pearl Treatment

Nothing is more natural than a pearl. Unlike gemstones, regularly cut and polished to unleash their beauty, pearls arrive ready-made, as natural as when they emerged from the creature.

Since the beginning of time, man has sought to improve upon nature. Pearls are no exception. The majority of today's cultured pearls have undergone some form of processing or treatment after their removal from the mollusk. There are three main pearl treatments that low quality pearls are subjected to dyeing, irradiation, luster enhancements.

Dyeing includes the use of silver nitrate on the pearl, in order to darken the pearl’s nacre. Irradiation treatments use gamma rays to darken the pearls. Akoya pearls have their nucleus darkened by the gamma rays, while freshwater pearls have their nacre darkened. Luster treatments are typically a clear coating placed on the surface of the pearl in order to artificially increase the luster of the otherwise dull looking pearl.

Normal enhancement treatment of Bleaching and UV - the use of silver nitrate has been used for many years to enhance pearls. With the freshwater market came increased opportunities for pearl processors to experiment with these methods. The reduced cost of freshwater pearls created the perfect scenario for trying out new treatments. Almost all pearls are being treated one way or another today. Detecting color change treatments can be tricky. But here a few methods one can use:

One can examine the matching of the strand of pearls. A strand of natural colored pearls will have slight color variations between each pearl. A perfectly consistent strand of pearls can be evidence of color treatments. Perfect pearls are not natural. One can peer down the drill hole of a pearl and look for contradictions of color. If one can see a darkened nucleus when peering through the hole, this could be evidence of iridescent treatments. Sharp colors are another hint of an enhancement. It is common to dye poor quality Peach colored pearls “Pink”. Keep in mind that natural pearl colors are pastel and have a soft look to them. Bold sharp colors are normally enhanced.