[Casey.R]

Oh and they said some strands are just more round tthan others.

[pearllove]

Dear Casey.R,
You got me obsessively looking at my Freshadamas again. I have been staring at them for about 2 hours. I have three strands of the Freshadamas: 6-7mm white, 8-9mm pink and 8-9mm lavender. Of my three, the white strand is the most lustrous, but have the least rounds. The pink strand is better matched in color than the lavender, but is not as lustrous as the white or lavender strand. The lavender strand is lustrous, but the colors are not well matched. (I have a lavender bracelet and earrings as well and none of the colors match well. I actually like the color of the pearls in the bracelet the best as they are the darkest. I will be returning the lavender set for a better matched set.) To my eyes none of my strands look round when I look at them in my hands. However, when I wear them, they look round. In my experience after having purchased four sets of Freshadama pearls (two white, one pink and one lavender), there seems to be a lot of variation in luster among all Freshadamas and in colors among the colored Freshadamas. I will post some pictures tomorrow.

[pearllove]

Here are some pictures of my Freshadamas for comparison purposes. I find that the pinks and lavenders photograph darker than they actually are. The two photos of the earrings show the most accurate true to life colors.

6-7mm white Freshadama set


same strand next to AAA akoyas






8-9mm lavender Freshadama set


8-9mm pink Freshadama set


side by side comparisons






4 pairs of Freshadama earrings

[silverseajewelry]

Pearl love, yours look pretty round to me.

[pearllove]

Silverseajewelry, I think the luster helps to make the pearls look more round as well as hide surface blemishes. If you look at the strands in your hands the pearls definitely are not perfectly round.

[Raisondetre]

Very lovely. I do prefer the warmer glow of the freshadamas vs hanadamas though. I know I'm biased.

[GemGeek]

Pearllove, I enjoyed those photos immensely, thanks!

[jerin]

Hi Pearllove,

it seems to me that the pink Freshadamastrand has more round pearls than the lavendar, still I think they look overall very nice, the peach/pink one has nice luster too, at least not that I would return it. Perfect rounds in pearls without nucleus are perhaps possible but if PP does string all the perfect ones on just some of the strands, that would leave us other buyers with the ovalshaped ones and that wouldn´t be fair either.It is a give and take, I think, only PPB as the Akoyas are truly round and for now at least Freshadamas are the best you can get in Freshwaters.

BTW I think the Freshadamas hold their own very well in comparison to Your Akoyas reg luster. I hope you will be satisfied with what you get from PP next time. Let us know and thans for the photos.

[Pearl_dreams]

*musing*

If there are fewer lavenders and if they are also in greater demand than peaches and whites (as is my impression; I don't know if it's true) then the vendors would have to either use more of the off-rounds in the lavender strands to meet the the demand, or else cull out the off-rounds for other uses, thereby reducing the availability of lavender strands and maybe raising their price over that of the other colors.

[pearllove]

Jerin,
I love all my Freshadamas, especially the 6-7mm whites. They are so cute and just as lustrous as my AAA akoyas. I got these for my 16 month old daughter who is also a pearl lover. I am just exchanging my lavender set for a better matched one.

[jerin]

Originally Posted by Pearl_dreams

*musing*

If there are fewer lavenders and if they are also in greater demand than peaches and whites (as is my impression; I don't know if it's true) then the vendors would have to either use more of the off-rounds in the lavender strands to meet the the demand, or else cull out the off-rounds for other uses, thereby reducing the availability of lavender strands and maybe raising their price over that of the other colors.

Hi Pearl_dreams,

Exactly my thoughts!

[Caitlin]

"Off round" means a bigger deviation than 5% to me. Pearllunar sells off round. Their colors are often as good as Jeremy's, but they are much further off round than Jeremys. They advertised one strand that matches my lavender freshie- as "very round" What they meant was "very eggy".

I said the dark, dark lavender is the rare color, though I do think there are fewer lavender than peach. In an order from member Mandyshan lfrom China last year. I asked for 10 strands of 6-7mm dark lavender as she had in her picture and 20 of the 5-6mm in the same color. I got about 6 strands that were as dark as Jeremy's, Then I got 10 peach colored! The rest were light lavender.

Lesson learned: All pearl dealers parse their pearls, but the Chinese do it more than Jeremy does........

In the old days, The royals would have gotten ALL the natural perls anywhere near round (including the 5% off-rounds) as well as the largest of the baroques, and the rest of the court got the less round ones and/or the smaller ones.

We are dealing with pearls very like the ancient natural pearls. Round is simply not as round as the cultured pearls many eyes have been taught to see as a must.

The solution is to cultivate an "eye" for natural shapes in pearls. Personally I detest the marching, machine gun, sameness of round pearls. If I wanted that look, faux pearls have it in spades and most folk can't even tell the fakes from the cultured PPB's. They have to do the "tooth test" or they are fooled. No such problem with freshwaters!!!

The slightly off round shapes are a dead giveaway you are getting solid nacre pearls made in the shell, and not pearls made out of the shell- as in MoP bead-nucleation.

[Casey.R]

I have no problem with off rounds generally. I'm not after something that looks just like akoyas either. I love all my baroques pearls and one of my favorite strands ever are my oval exotics. They are perfect at being oval exotics if that makes any sense. But with the freshadamas I wanted rounder looking pearls than I got.It doesn't mean I want all the pearls in my pearl wardrobe to be perfectly round. There was just a little too much variation in shape (for me) and it was obvious to my eyes at least. With the freshadamas your paying for great pearls so I want something that wows me.

[Valeria101]

Originally Posted by Casey.R

I have no problem with off rounds generally. ...with the freshadams I wanted rounder looking ...It doesn't mean I want all the pearls in my pearl wardrobe to be perfectly round.

If only everyone would think the same!

I think some of the pro-off-round comments I made on your topics and Caitlin's above, are also motivated by the broader lack of understanding... not by your position. I could not agree more with your last post! [understanding pearls shouldn't have much to do with being ...understanding towards imprecise advertising, does it ]

Looking forward to your next purple strand!

[Caitlin]

Hi Casey,
101 beat me to it. I was not addressing you and your specific necklace, but trying to add an educational note into the thread for future readers.