Have different colors

The wonder of Tahitian Pearls

"What color is a Tahitian pearl?"
When you are asked this question, what kind of color do you think of Tahitian pearls?
Compared to Akoya pearls or golden pearls, you may not have a clear image of the color, or you may have a vague impression of a blackish color.

This special feature is caused by the abundance of color variations created by Tahitian pearl oysters and the inclusion of Tahitian Pearls in water.”Mysterious change”I would like to introduce about.

What color is this?

When we mention the color of pearls on the product page, The Tahitian Pearl is the most troublesome.

For example, there are many pearls that say, "It's not gray or silver, but it also has a yellowish or red color, and what color should I express?" It's difficult to do and you're in trouble.

So, the reason why there are so many such pearls is because the black-lipped pearl oyster, which produces Tahitian pearls, produces proteins with the three primary colors, red, blue and yellow pigments, which form a more complex coloration than other pearls, resulting in pearls of various colors.

If you compare the mother shell of a golden pearl (yellow-lipped pearl shell), which does not show rainbow or playful colors, with the mother shell of a Tahitian pearl (black-lipped pearl shell), you can clearly see the difference in structural colors.
The differences in the proteins produced by the shells themselves result in different variations in the color of the resulting pearls.

Yellow pearl oyster on the left and black pearl oyster on the right.

Tahitian pearls are produced from the black-lipped pearl oyster (Pinctada margaritifera), a bivalve shell about 15 cm in diameter with an average size of 9 to 10 mm.

The main production area is the Polynesian Triangle, a Tahitian consisting of 118 islands located in the middle of the triangle connecting Hawaii to the north, Easter Island to the southwest, and New Zealand to the southwest.(official name: In French Polynesia), production is about about the total As much as 95%increase.

Among them, black butterfly pearls made at several farms in the village of Mangareva, which is called Liquitia, about 1,600 km southeast of Tahiti, are sold at high prices at auctions.

The reason is that Liquitia's Tahitian Pearls, located in the southeastern area of Tahiti where the water temperature is low, are fine-grained and beautifully glossy because the shells slowly form the nacre.This is because there are many high-quality items compared to other areas.
Like the environment of Tsushima described in the previous special feature, there is a village of Liquitia.Mangareva has abundant mountains, and it is also a major factor that the mineral-rich water for the growth of mother mussels flows from the mountains.

File: Vue Rikitea 2006, (quoted from Wikipedia)

One of the charms of Tahitian pearls is that they can produce a wide variety of colors from the same type of shell, and as a pearl that allows you to encounter unique colors that you have never seen before, or a pearl that allows you to obtain your own unique color, they have a different value than other pearls.

"What color is Tahitian Pearl?"
The question we asked you at the beginning of this article, we ourselves cannot give you an answer. But I think that is exactly what the Tahitian Pearl is.

All of these are the colors produced by Tahitian Pearl shell.It's just a part.

A mysterious change caused by the Tahitian Pearl

I noticed a mysterious phenomenon when I made a hole in a Tahitian Pearl to make it into a product and put it in a container with water to clean the inside of the hole.

The moment the red black pearl was put in the container, the red pearl in the water turned green.

I thought, "What? This Tahitian Pearl was this color?", And when I went outside, it returned to red again.

It was a strange phenomenon.

I've seen a lot of Tahitian Pearl so far, but I'm sorry that I didn't notice this phenomenon, but when I learned about this phenomenon, I put all the Tahitian Pearl I had in the water in the same way.

Then, roughly3It was divided into street patterns.
① The color is almost the same.
② Things that change a little.
③ Things that change drastically.

The percentages were roughly 20%, 60%, and 20%

Normally, when the surface of a pearl is exposed to light, each pearl emits a different color due to a phenomenon called "multilayer film interference" in which light is reflected inside the layers of nacre.

Perhaps the color change that occurs when placed in water is a phenomenon that appears prominently in pearls that are made up of layers of various colors, not in pearls that form complex shades like Tahitian Pearls. I can assume that.

I think this is a phenomenon that occurs when the light waves that were occurring in the air collide with each other, but when placed in water, some of the light is absorbed or the speed of the light changes, which changes the interference of the light waves and makes the color of the layers inside visible, not just the color that was visible on the ground.

In addition to Tahitian Pearls, I also tried natural colored Akoya Pearls and South Sea Pearls, and found that compared to other pearls, Tahitian Pearls, which have more complex colors, tend to have this phenomenon.

However, the fact that the color does not change does not mean that it is less valuable.
Among the Tahitian pearls that comprise complex colors, pearls that are monochromatic and have distinct colors like blue and red are rare and valuable when you consider that they are made up of only layers of similar colors.
A Tahitian pearl that does not change color is not a bad thing. Let me state this clearly here.
Apart from this feature, I hope to introduce the beauty of single color Tahitian pearls again.

This time, I wanted to let you know about this mysterious phenomenon, so I have prepared a selection of fine and beautiful Tahitian pearls that change color in interesting ways when placed in water.
Please take a look at these wonderful pearls, which can become your own special piece.

* The description of the pearl color change that occurs in water is just a guess. If you are a more knowledgeable expert and find something wrong, I would appreciate it if you could point it out.  

* Used in this experimentThe water will be mineral water. Tap water is not used as it may cause minor damage to the pearls due to residual chlorine.