Pearl is second after diamond for women, precious and charming. Neckless, rings, bracelets made of real pearls are famous world over and one can buy pearl from few dollars to some thousand dollars but now days imitation of pearl is done worldwide and hundreds of people get cheated everyday by purchasing fake pearls
How Are Fake Pearls Made?
- Plastic Beads - The beads are cover with as many as forty coats of pearl essence and hand polished between each coat, but is much lighter than glass beads.
- Mother-of-pearl shell beads - These are coated with the same substances as plastic and glass imitations. There are also some occasions that people sell uncoated mother-of-pearl shell beads, and claim those are pearls. Other terms used to designate imitation pearls are simulated and faux pearls.
- Glass beads - Make in the same process as that of plastic beads. But they are heavier than plastic beads.
How Can We Test Real Pearl?
- Simple Rub/ Friction Test For Pearl. - Take two pearls then lightly rub one against the other. If they feel gritty or sandy, they are real pearls. If they feel smooth, they are not real.
- Microscope Test for Pearl.- Magnify the surface of the pearl with a magnifier. If it look grainy, the bead is imitation pearl. If it looks scaly, maze-like, it is real pearl.
- Density Test For Pearl. - Density is the mass of an object as a function of its volume. Real pearls are heavier for their size than plastic, resin, or hollow glass pearls. Good glass fakes will have the same density are real pearls. Light pearls are fake - you can't tell real from faux on the basis of density alone if the pearls are heavy.
- X-Ray Test For Pearl. - If you really need to know whether or not your pearls are real or fake or whether they are natural or cultured, you are going to have to pay someone, preferably a certified gemologist, to x-ray them for you. An x-ray will show the inside of the pearl, including variations in its density, the presence or absence of a parasite that might have caused the formation of a natural pearl, and the characteristic shapes of drill holes, if present.
So by Following the above mentioned tests one can easily find that the pearl is real or not. However Cultured Pearls being the exception.
