What are Freshwater Pearls?

Freshwater pearls have been used for centuries to make beautiful and desirable jewellery. Freshwater pearls come in a wide variety of colours, shapes and sizes and they have a beautiful lustre and sheen to them. 

Freshwater pearls come from bivalve mussels and nearly all freshwater pearls come from China where they are commercially farmed.  The pearls can take anywhere from between 2 to 7 years to form and each mussel will generally produce more than two dozen pearls clustered inside of each shell.  

Freshwater pearls are very rarely perfectly round and are more frequently rice shaped or slightly off round shapes . They can also be unusual baroque and barrel shapes.

Freshwater pearls have a high sheen and lustre to them that sets them apart from a glass pearl.

Look carefully at the shapes too as you will often see little growth lines or very slightly irregular shapes to them which indicates that they are natural freshwater pearls. 

What are Faux Pearls?

There are many different varieties of faux pearl available and I love to use the most beautiful and luxurious glass and crystal pearls made in Austria and in the Czech Republic.  

Both countries have a long history of glassmaking and have been creating exquisite crystal and pearl beads for many centuries and today produce the finest quality pearls available. 

Crystal and glass pearls are made to imitate the lustre of real pearls and come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes  and colours. They are cruelty free so they are suitable for vegan brides as they do not contain any animal products. 

Austrian and Czech pearls have a crystal core which gives the pearls a realistic weight which is then covered in a smooth coat of many layers of glass and crystal.

You can tell them apart from a freshwater pearl as crystal pearls are always uniform in shape; they are perfectly round and the teardrops are perfect consistent shapes.  These are luxurious, high end and cruelty free alternatives to freshwater or natural pearls.