Hi, I bought some pearls recently and I knew they were dyed but I was wondering what colors are natural for freshwater and akoyas? Thanks.
Hi, I bought some pearls recently and I knew they were dyed but I was wondering what colors are natural for freshwater and akoyas? Thanks.
Or is there a section I missed that discuss which colors are natural? I am just curious; thanks.
For FWs, white, pink/peach and lavender are natural colors. I am sure this has been discussed in another thread on P-G...![]()
Am not a vendor, (Is there an echo in here?), but cream is a natural color. Many whites are bleached although some are naturally colored. There are many shades of peach to pink, mauve to lavender and both blue and green overtones are natural. I have also seen a number of yellow and gold pearls that were not dyed. Christmas red is never natural although there are some beautiful red overtones on Tahitians in another thread somewhere here. I have also seen a few metallic pearls that are copper or brown in color. I have a number of silvery CFW that have a pale lavender or grey base color.
What I don't see are primary colors. Red-red. Stand alone blue. Yellow with no overtone or undertones. Although I adore gold pearls and some of them are gold with gold overtones in both CFW and SSP's.
Of course you know that white can have almost any over tone.
Hope that helps.
barbie
It'll be a mystery to me 'till I pass beyond the veil why vendors color pearls peach, white, lavender. As if those are the only colors.
Actually, that's a lie. I suspect they do it to get more even colors with less than perfect pearls.
Terry or Jeremy handle a lot of akoya so they would know best about those colors. What I see is (bleached)white, yellow, blue, and pinkish(bleached/colored?). I know they can be a lovely silver also.
Have you looked at the baroque akoya? They have amazing teal and orange overtones.
If you go to Forums and look for Baroque Akoya in August of 2007 you'll find some great pics on page 10 of natural color overtone with no enhancements.
Last edited by barbie biggs; 07-02-2009 at 10:20 PM.
Barbie and Amrita, thank you. Barbie thank you for the info on the link to the baroque akoyas.
In round pearls? There are many color variations that occur in second harvest or "keishi" pearls, but many of them are dyed as well. If you buy from someone honest and ask, they should tell you whether they are dyed or not. If they don't know, that's probably not good. The pearl colors posted by Mandyshan (thanks!) will also look different according to their quality and the overtones they have, sometimes making them more metallic or a different intensity of the color. Good luck.
Sheryl
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