Friday, December 24, 2010

Keshi Pearls

Keshi pearls are an accidental procuct of the pearl culturing process. Sometimes an oyster rejects the implanted nucleus and a pearl. of sorts, forms anyway. Even though they are comprised entirely of nacre they cannot bear the designation of natural because they are a byproduct of the culturing process.

Typical culturing takes about a year or two, so keshis are often very small because they lack a nucleus. This also means their shapes vary widely. Keshis can occur both in salt and freshwater oysters and come in a wide variety of colors.



I have noticed, lately, the term Keshi applied as a shape description to many pearls. Keshi is a very specific type of cultured pearl, not a shape. The mis-use of the term has made it nearly impossible for me to find pictures of these little beauties to show you.

Since I don't see any of our talented team members usung keshi pearls, I leave you with a selection of beautiful cultured pearl creations:

From jeweledblossoms:



From twochickstoo:



From bonhomiejewelry:




The SATeam blog features artisan handmade creations by the etsy starving artists jewelry team. SATeam members create handcrafted jewelry and beads. More information about our team and its current etsy shop owner members can be found at SATEAM.etsy.com

4 comments:

mcstoneworks said...

Love pearls. Thanks for the great info on them. Beautiful examples of jewelry with pearls.

Cat said...

How interesting! I love to learn new things from you :-)

Caron Michelle said...

Pearls are my absolute favourite, thanks for sharing this info and great selections as well.

Happileerving said...

That was great. Thanks for explaining what keishi pearls really are.