Those of you shopping for pearls you are probably not shopping for an all natural pearl. All natural pearls are fully incubated inside of an oyster or other mollusk and these can take anywhere from a month or longer to form and are thus a very expensive. You really need some kind of an x-ray examination to be able to determine if a pearl is really a pearl or if you are dealing with what most of pearls are, a cultured Pearl. While a cultured Pearl does have a core body which is not an actual pearl, this still takes several months to form a thin layer around the bead, so in this regard pearls are still a very valuable gem and should be treated with the same consideration.
Cultured pearls come in any number of different varieties of jewelry and can be found all across the spectrum. If you are looking for cultured pearl jewelry, really only need to do is go to your local jewelry store and ask around. He wary of anything you find in a department store or for under $10 as this is probably imitation pearl jewelry made of plastic or something like that. However most jewelry stores carry cultured pearl jewelry and some of the higher quality jewelry stores will have real pearls available.
Cultured pearl jewelry can be found in a number of different forms; you may be looking for cultured pearl necklaces or you may be looking for cultured pearl bracelets. Many times people have cultured pearl earrings which are very popular item. The cultured Pearl earring business is so specific that some people have 10mm cultured pearl earrings while some people are not as specific as that.
If you are looking for a black cultured pearl necklace this is something that is available although the availability of black pearls is a little bit less prevalent than other pearls just due to their complex incubation process. There are also the much more readily available deep green cultured pearl necklaces which are available from retailers and pearl specialists in particular.
Honora cultured freshwater pearls is a name in the industry which has long been known to produce wonderful freshwater pearls didn't make it into jewelry and other types of paraphernalia. Cultured pearl jewelry is a very comprehensive industry and there are cultured Pearl earrings, cultured Perl rings in size 9, as well as a number of other types of cultured Pearl benchmarks.