| Hi FX,
The "reborn" pearls are cut-off blister pearls. Sometimes they are even peeled but most of the time they are just cut off, dyed and that's it.
Shell pearls come in a large variety of qualities. Some are pearl powder plus pigment plus polyresin pressed into bead shapes, others are various types of lacquer sprayed onto a tridacna bead, and the most expensive kind consists of mississippi shell beads onto which a coat of dissolved mother of pearl avec some pigment has precipitated from an oversaturated solution. The last type is being sold under various brandnames for quite amazing amounts of money. They are also a sellevision darling.
Zeide |