Choose a Tahitian Black Pearl necklace

Tahitian pearls are often called  Tahitian  black pearls but that is not completely correct as they are normally quite dark including dark blue and green but most Tahitian pearls will not be black, you can find some black pearls but are quite rare. Also they are not found only in Tahiti but in the whole area of French Polynesia. Tahitian pearls are on average between 9 and 12 millimeters in diameter. As most pearls they are not always round, you will find Tahitian pearls that have pear, drop and semi-circular shapes and those that have weird shapes (called baroque in the business). Each shape can work really well in different types of jewellery, for instance drop and pear can be good earrings or pendants. If you want a proper Tahitian pearl necklace you will have mostly round or semi-rounds pearls.

The mollusk that creates the Tahitian black pearl takes about two and half years to go from a tiny organism to a fully grown oyster capable of producing pearls.

These oysters would not produce many pearls naturally, not enough to make them commercially viable therefore a little help is needed. Oysters make pearl when they surround an intruder which could be a speck of dust or a parasite in their shell with a coat of calcium carbonate. As intruders naturally are not that common to mimic this situation and to encourage the oyster to make a pearl a graft is made inside the oyster. This is a Japanese technique that is now used for cultured pearls all over the world. The graft is normally a small piece of the mantel of another oyster. I will take over 18 months for the pearl to be ready. The same oyster can be grafted again to produce a second and often a third pearl, bear in mind that the quality will decrease with the increasing age of the oyster although the oysters might be bigger. Tahitian pearls of low quality with over 40% of their surface covered by imperfections will be destroyed and not exported.

Tahitian pearls are the queen of pearls which are the only really organic gem that you can wear. As in anything which is precious and valuable you will risk to find fake pearls. Always go to a reputable jeweller and be suspicious when the pearls are too cheap or too perfect. Tahitian pearls will never have an uniform colour but will have different hues even on the same pearl. They will be cold to the touch and not room temperature as fake pearls are. If you are looking for a necklace with a single pearl pendant the cost will depend on the material of the necklace while even a short collar made with several Tahitian pearls will cost you several hundred dollars. If you are looking for a full opera length (28-34 inches) or a rope length (28-40 inches) necklace,the cost will increase considerably.