I am always dismayed by those “experts” who try to persuade you to buy something that meets their criteria rather what you like and want.

Your dollars are presumably yours by right of hard work and nobody but nobody has the right to tell you what you should do with them – assuming you’re within the law of course!

So, the answer in one sense is simple – buy what you like and want. If a pearl is speaking to you, listen to it. Don’t disregard that because someone has told you that the shape isn’t “optimal” (often meaning “round”).

We’ve all heard the old saying “diamonds are a girl’s best friend”.

Well, in a sense that’s understandable. Diamonds are, of course, a beautiful stone. They hold their values well and the old saying implies, not very subtly, that they’re a lot more permanent and reliable than a man!

Now let me say clearly right up front, I am NOT about to try and demolish that mystique. I have no interest in trying to ‘knock’ diamonds.

I am often heard speaking passionately about the great natural beauty of natural pearls.

It’s not that unusual to then have someone ask a question to the effect of “if pearls are so magnificently beautiful in their natural state, why do you put diamonds in them?”

OK, it’s a fair question…….so let me explain.

Our designs do not for one-second take as a start point that we can somehow “improve” upon nature.  What we can do though is to enhance and augment nature’s wonderful gift of pearls and their effect.

Yes, of course!

Firstly and at the risk of splitting hairs, there are many pearls that aren’t going to be obscured by your scarf.  Assuming we’re talking here of neck as opposed to headscarves, things such as earrings, bracelets and rings, will all still be perfectly visible.

You will certainly need to coordinate colour schemes and so on but that should be business-as-usual in terms of your wardrobe management.

There’s really no easy answer to this one.

For a start, it’s not a question of quantity. Most of us have a sense of colour coordination and if we have even one pearl on that doesn’t match our overall outfit colour scheme, then it’s one pearl too many.

Another possibility is that sometimes we have a relatively small number of pearls on but they don’t match in terms of colour.  It’s in the eye of the beholder but of course, again, two pearls is one too many if their luminescence clashes one with the other.

A female friend of mine once said:

“it’s easy to buy for a man – absolutely any toy will keep him happy for weeks”.

Well, even many men would agree there’s a degree of truth in that. We all know about “boy’s toys” and “man caves” etc. (!)

However, if you want to do something different and buy the man in your life a piece of eternal pearl jewellery, what are your options?

Human beings are clever.

Ask the person in charge of a production machine whether or not it can produce 12 widgets an hour in future instead of the current 10 and there’s a fair chance that a clever man or woman will be able to think of a way to “make it so”. 

Now in the case of molluscs, it’s a very different thing – and we’re speaking here of cultured Australian South Seas pearls. 

You can’t offer the mollusc pay incentives or make morale-boosting speeches to persuade it to work harder. Nor can you come up with a turbocharge booster to make it go faster. It’s a natural thing and it produces pearls via a natural process in its own time.

There are so many “old wives’ tales” on this one that it’s untrue!

My advice is always the same – wear your pearls whenever you wish, providing that your overall outfit is coordinated and that they’re suitable for the event concerned.

You will see and hear lots of advice that differs here. “Only wear Black pearls in the months x-z” or “white is best between a-c” and so on. Even if you agree, it’s worth remembering that the seasons are different in the two hemispheres and a host of other environmental variables mean that such advice, thoughwell intentioned, isn’t always applicable.

This is an interesting question and one I wonder a lot about.

It’s true, of course, that I have no way of knowing how you might feel about them. All jewellery and particularly pearls, is a very personal thing.

For example, some people like very bold and statement-oriented pearls. Others prefer much smaller and more discreet examples. Then there are those who like to have different pearls for different occasions or simply to reflect their changing moods from one day to another.

Now this is a tricky area because people can get very, VERY obsessed about superstitions.

True, this might not only be a superstition issue. It might also be acolour coordination one because sometimesvery white pearls can be a little lost on an equally white background. That’s perhaps not the look you’re intending but let’s assume here that you’ll deal with that through your owncolour coordination and dress designer services.

This is a question I’m often asked and am very happy to discuss but right at the outset, do remember that the rarity and value of a pearl is made up by many things and size is only one of them!

Right, onto business.

Nobody disputes that South Sea pearls are statistically the largest in the world. They’re found in Australia and a number of other countries around the world. In terms of size, they can be up to 20mm in diameter though it’s worth stressing that the larger pearls of that size (or close to it) are exceedingly rare. As you’ll imagine, they command premium prices.

I’m sure you wouldn’t want us to start telling you what it is that you find so attractive in pearls! You probably know that yourself.

However, what I would like to do is to spend a few minutes talking about one aspect of this wonderful bounty of nature – and that’s its luminescence.

We all often speak of a pearl’s lustre and its luminescence. Strictly speaking, this is incorrect.

Entire libraries have been filled with books on what exactly “design” and “style” mean. Universities are also full of design lecturers and students discussing the same subject.

So, you’ll understand that I’m a bit intimidated trying to cover this topic in a brief blog!  Even so, I’ll do my best - so here goes…

These two subjects are highly subjective.

The answer is a resounding ‘yes’ but let’s look a little at the history.

Earlier centuries

If you look at male portraits of the 14^th-17^th centuries, you’ll often see men wearing elaborate jewellery. This continues for much longer, well into the 20^th in non-European societies such as those in North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

The men concerned are, of course, almost exclusively royalty or nobility though sometimes also of the rich merchant classes. If you look, you’ll see pearls play a massively prominent part in the masculine jewellery of the time. This includes items such as earrings, brooches, necklaces (none of which were considered exclusively feminine at the time) and rings.

In many portraits, the men are as festooned as the women or even more so.

It’s sometimes overlooked that Australia is one of the world’s great pearl-producing centres.

History

It’s only really in the later 20th century that Australian history was revised away from an almost exclusive focus onBritish and European settlement to include the Aboriginal or First Nations people.  This is important because the facts remind us that pearl fishing in Australia and the Torres Islands started long before the first Europeans arrived.

I’m often asked what I look for when I’m searching for and procuring the exceptional South Seas pearls that are used by Lust Pearls.

Let me be clear – I am not interested in buying cheap or compromising on quality. I have very demanding standards and nothing but the finest quality pearls make it into my possession and the catalogue of Lust Pearls’ creative designs.

This is a question we’re asked regularly.  There is an extensive background of our founder and company, elsewhere on our site but a quick refresh in the form of a blog never does any harm!

It all started many yearsago, when Jill was captivated not only by pearls but the entire culture and mystique that surrounds them.  She was determined to build her professional life around these incredibly beautiful gems and was lucky enough to be able to do so through Lust Pearls.

If you’re considering buying pearl jewellery online, some of the following tips should prove helpful.

Be clear what you’re looking for

Pearls can be considered as coming into three categories:

• naturally occurring at random in the wild (typically the most expensive and rare today); 

• naturally produced by molluscs with human intervention to stimulate the process (these are often called cultivated pearls); 

• These may range from essentially plastic to a wide variety of more exotic materials. Purists would not typically describe these products as pearls.

If all other things are equal, the above is the descending order of typical price levels.

One of the commonest questions we hear relates to the so-called ‘pearl diving girls’ of Japan.

Let’s clear up a few mysteries and misconceptions!

In Japan, for over a thousand years, natural pearls were sought after and brought to the surface by the ‘Ama’ – a word that very roughly translates to “woman of the sea”.

The term used in English is often “girls” but that is fundamentally wrong.  The vast majority of the Ama were mature women andmany continued diving into their 80s and even 90s.

In gold, the higher the carat / karat (sometimes abbreviated to “ct” and “K”) the higher the purity of the gold is.

If everything else is equal, such as weight, the higher the carat number is, the more expensive the gold will be.

This sometimes leads into questions as to why a jeweller might use18ct not 22ct/24ct and why on some 18ct pieces, there might be fittings of 9ct.  This is easy to explain!