Tahitian cultured pearls yield a sensual elegance that focus attention on the wearer and accentuate one's feminine side. As jewelry consumers become more knowledgeable about these gems, Tahitian black pearls are gaining more followers and jewelry designers are becoming more inventive in their uses of these pearls in high-fashion pieces.
One of the most fascinating things about Tahitian pearls is their color range. While they are usually referred to as black, they exhibit a rainbow of colors from black and purple/black to dark and light gray, greenish and bronze/black. The beauty of Tahitian pearls lies in the mystery of their nacre; they display not just one color, but rather a lovely interplay of light and colors. In the finest Tahitian pearls, the nacre has a luster that is almost metallic in its effect.
For the ultimate in luxury in pearl jewelry, select a classic uniformed or graduated necklace with Tahitian black pearls. For a more contemporary look, choose a lariat or gold link necklace with stations or drops of Tahitian pearls. For a trendier style, contrast your black Tahitian pearls with rubies, pink tourmalines, coral or red enamel. Use their natural colors to enhance your skin tone. Choose a bronze or peacock green shade of Tahitian pearls for your creamy complexion. Opt for grey or pure black pearls for rosy pink skin. Go for the drama of the bluish, purplish range for your olive skin tone.
Pearl earrings are one of the perfect showcase for these beauties; picking up on the black and white trend, choose a bi-color style with one black Tahitian pearl and one white South Sea pearl. The classic cocktail ring looks most contemporary with a perfect Tahitian pearl surrounded by a sunburst of baguette diamonds. Or choose a bold, modern look where the pearl is perched on a nest of sparkling diamond pavé.
What’s in the Name?
With the exception of Poe Konini, Poe Rava and Titian; the Cook Islands Black Pearls, Black-lipped Pearls, Black Pearls, Black South Sea Pearls, Black Tahitian Pearls, Grey Pearls, Tahitian Black Pearls, Tahitian Cultured Pearls and Tahitian Pearls are all common names used interchangeably when referring to pearls cultured in the black-lipped pearl oyster (pinctada margaritifera) or Te Ufi.
The Black-lipped Pearl Oyster:
Tahitian Black Pearls are not products of Tahiti as the name infers, rather, Tahiti serves as the commercial trading point for pearls harvested from the farms scattered throughout the Gambier Island groups of Micronesia and Polynesia. The nacreous secreting mollusk (mollusc) is considered indigenous to the Polynesian Islands. Today, and in all likelihood due to the pearling industry, this oyster’s habitat and culturing locations extend from the warm salt waters of Asia to Baja California, to the tropic and sub-tropical waters of the West Indies. They can be found on the Pacific side of Japan; in the Cook Islands Atolls, the Tuamotu Archipelago, the Gambier Island groups of Micronesia and Polynesia, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, Australia and Fiji.
Culturing the Tahitian Black Pearl:
Cultured Pearls are those which were produced by seeded-oysters nurtured in over a 1,000 protected lagoons (sea farms or oyster beds) located on over 50 islands to be found in the French Polynesian archipelagoes (South Pacific Coral Islands extending half-way between Australia and South America). This process is a long and tedious, fraught with problems as considerable attention must be given to this delicate specie that often suffers from bad health. The oyster is seeded by implanting a piece of mantle tissue and a spherical nucleus, close to the oyster’s reproductive organs, to act as an irritant. The oyster will reject or cover this irritant with nacre, thereby, creating a pearl. The pearls are harvested within 2 to 3 years and sometimes up to 6 years.
Levels of Quality - Tahitian Pearls:
Unlike a diamond, the naked eye is used when judging the quality of harvested pearls. Each pearl is evaluated and sorted according to its size, shape and surface defects. The four levels of grades used, by a pearl producer to determine Tahitian Cultured Pearls’ surface quality, are: A, B, C, and D (rejects). This pearl grading factor is also referred to as the “Tahitian System”:
1. A Quality: The pearl has very slight or no surface defects visible to the naked eye. Any existing defects are confined to less than 10% of its surface. Owing to nature’s involvement, it is very unusual to find a Tahitian Pearl totally devoid of surface defects. Approximately 6-10% of an established farm’s pearls are of A quality. These pearls are considered as “fine pearls” and generally exhibit excellent to gem quality luster.
2. B Quality: Slightly visible imperfections confined to less than 1/3 or 30% of the pearl’s surface. Approximately 60% of a pearl farm’s harvested pearls are of B quality. The pearls can exhibit high, medium (average) or good luster.
3. C Quality: Pearl’s shows several visible flaws distributed over less 2/3 or 60% of its surface. Approximately 34% of the farm’s harvested pearls are of C quality. These pearls are of medium quality luster.
4. D Quality: The pearl shows visible defects on more than 2/3 or 60% of its surface. D Quality pearls are considered rejects regardless of luster.
Other Grading Factors:
The overall value of a Tahitian Cultured Pearl depends not only on its surface quality but also on its luster and orient, and rarity of color, size and shape. These four factors are evaluated when the pearls enter the wholesale marketplace:
Pearl Luster vs. Pearl Orient:
Luster is the manner in which light is reflected on the pearl’s surface showing its iridescent color(s). It is seen as a result of light breaking up as it reaches the overlapping sequential nacre layers. An object, placed in-front of a high luster pearl, will reflect clearly on its surface. The orient of a pearl depends greatly on how the layer of nacre within the pearl reflects light and as well as how wide the light spreads across the pearl’s surface. The brighter and wider the reflection and refraction of light on the pearl’s surface, the higher the pearl’s luster.
Colors of the Tahitian Black Pearls:
Color is one of the most subjective criteria used when grading or selecting the Tahitian Black Pearls as they are rarely black. In fact, these pearls when truly and fully black in color are very rare. The term “Black Pearl” was coined for the oyster in which they are grown – the Black-lipped Pearl Oyster.
Tahitian Pearls comes in a plethora of colors and exhibits a multitude of shallow to deep iridescent luster. The colors range from a single color of black, grey, green, white, silver, cream, etc., with the majority of the aforementioned colors exhibiting a multi-mix of iridescent overtones of yellows, pinks, magenta, peacock, ocean blues, violets, platinum, brown, silver-brown, to name a few, showing on the surface of the pearls. Rare Tahitian Black Pearl colors: peacock green (resembling the greenish black color of a peacock feather), aubergine and pistachio (all command high price).
It is not known what causes the specie of the black-lipped pearl oyster to produce a range of colors in its nacre. One may speculate, however, that environmental factors such as mineral levels in the sea water, ocean floor contamination and water temperature; the mantle used to seed the oyster and stress levels experienced during this process, plankton color and food level filtered during feeding plays a possible part in effecting the nacre color secreted by each oyster.
Pearl Sizes:
Expressed in millimeters, common sizes of round and semi-round Black Tahitian Pearls range from 8mm to 12mm. While sizes can reach up to 16 mm, perfectly round pearls above 13mm are an infrequent find. Baroque pearls including irregular shaped, drop, semi-drop and oval, being the largest amount of a farm’s output, are much easier to acquire in larger sizes. Sizes of 8mm to 14mm are easier to find. Depending on whose book you are reading or the pearl expert to whom one speaks, the largest Black Tahitian pearl found measured 25mm in diameter, and at other times, this same pearl measured 27mm in diameter – the equivalent of approximately 1 inch or a little over 1 inch. The Black-lipped Pearl Oyster has a historical recorded shell growth of 12 inch across and weight of 10 pounds; however, it has an average shell growth of 10 to 20 centimeters or 100 to 200 millimeters
Shapes of the Tahitian Black Pearls:
The pearls are sorted into five different shapes of round, semi-round, semi-baroque, ringed or circle and baroque pearls. Round pearls can be perfect or almost-perfectly round spheres with a diameter variation rate of less than 2%. Semi-round (off-round or near round) pearls are slightly off from being a perfect sphere and exhibit diameter variation rate of greater than 2 % but less than 5 %. Semi-baroque pearls (drop, button, pear and oval) have at least one axis of rotation allowing it to spin on a tabletop. Circle or ringed pearls can be any of the aforementioned shapes and are characterized by regular streaks or concave rings, perpendicular to their axis of rotation, over more than a third of the pearl's surface. Baroque pearls do not have an axis of rotation and are of freeform shape.
