Pearls, Pretty Please!Treat Yourself To 20% OFF Today

Visit our shop to find pearl jewelry to your taste to complete your outfit and to act as a reminder of what you’ve achieved.

See More:https://www.timelesspearl.com/

Read More

Yamanashi: The Home Of Handcrafted Jewelry

The Yamanashi Prefecture is known for its wine, textiles, washi (traditional Japanese paper), and of course, for their handcrafted jewelry. There is a saying in the jewelry industry that the world looks to Japan for jewelry and craft trends and the Japanese look to Yamanashi.

The Yamanashi Prefecture is a landlocked county 75 miles from Tokyo. Its capital, Kofu City, is known as the ‘City of Gems’ and is Japan’s primary producer of jewelry and polished crystals. 

The traditional gem cutting and polishing techniques they’re known for were brought to the area by Shinto priests who learned these skills in Kyoto. The artisans still use these hand-crafting techniques, together with state-of-the-art modern technologies. Today, they’re leading the world in stone-cutting and real pearl jewelry production Timeless Pearl

Yamanashi’s Gem History

Yamanashi’s jewelry-making history can be traced back for centuries to the Jomon Period (14,000 BC – 300 BC). The word ‘Jomon’ means patterned, and refers to the style of pottery made during that period. However, the fine decorating techniques that they’re known for today were developed in the late Edo Period (1603-1868).

It all started with the mining of rock crystals around Mt. Kinpu. There are two major arms within the industry: Crystal crafts (cutting, carving, and polishing) and precious metal working (cutting, shaving, soldering to join pieces, and setting gems).

In the early 20th century, electricity was widely adopted in Japan and became commonplace in Yamanashi. As a result, polishing was mechanized with new polishing machines driven by electricity, which changed the industry forever. Suddenly, they were able to produce jewelry and polished gems on a much larger scale. Even after the crystal supply in the area became exhausted, they continued to import large quantities of gems which they then sold to the US, China, and otherwise in Japan, after working their magic on the stones. 

During the Second World War, the focus of the crystal polishing factories shifted to meeting the military’s needs, like producing optical lenses and crystal oscillators. Additionally, since jewelry is a luxury item, demand for the hand-crafted jewelry dwindled. In 1945, 80% of Kofu was leveled by air strikes, but that didn’t bring the people of Yamanashi down. They quickly recovered after the war and started to mass produce jewelry and crystal crafts, which were mainly sold as souvenirs to the occupation soldiers.

Studying the Art Of Jewelry Making

Don’t think you can take a summer class in jewelry-making and then call yourself a jeweler in Yamanashi. In fact, it takes three to four years of strenuous studying to master the craft.

In 1981, the Yamanashi Prefectural Jewelry Art College opened its doors to train young people in the art of making jewelry. Students studying at this famous design school are completely disconnected from the outside world. Their mobile phones are taken away, and they’re immersed in jewelry-making all day. And if they’re not polishing gems or crafting jewelry, they’re thinking about how to design masterpieces. 

After three to four years of study, students are eligible to enter the industry to become jewelry designers. 

What Makes Yamanashi’s Jewelry So Special?

Jewelry is far more than just an external decoration. It conveys emotions and thoughts. Jewelry is like poetry, and the designers and craftsmen of Yamanashi understand this. 

Craftsmen are expected to be competent in many different facets of jewelry-making: From casting the precious metals, to engraving intricate patterns, to perfectly balancing the design. They also need to be able to interpret design drawings the way the designer envisioned while keeping in mind how the jewelry

Read More

Pearls in the Workplace: A Guide for New Graduates-real pearl jewelry

There’s no reason why you should opt for stuffy, drab attire, but you still want to choose something that looks professional. After all, you want to make a good impression. But there’s good news: You can still be you and keep your own style, just try to dress like a more sophisticated version of you.

See:https://www.timelesspearl.com/

Read More

Pearls in the Workplace: A Guide for New Graduates

One of the first questions, new graduates have is: “What should I wear to work?” Your jewelry is just as important as the clothes you wear – if not more so.

There’s no reason why you should opt for stuffy, drab attire, but you still want to choose something that looks professional. After all, you want to make a good impression. But there’s good news: You can still be you and keep your own style, just try to dress like a more sophisticated version of you.

Look at some basic guidelines should follow when choosing Real pearl jewelry from Timeless pearl to wear to work:

Tips for Wearing Pearls to the Office

1. Keep It Simple

The focus should be on the work you put forward, not on your jewelry. So keep it simple with wearing only one or two pieces of jewelry at a time, for instance, only a necklace or a brooch. You can pair a smaller and a bigger piece together, like a necklace and stud earrings, or a brooch and a ring.

2. Keep It Classy

Avoid chunky, glittery, noisy, overly-large, or dangling jewelry. Your jewelry should complement your outfit, not overpower it. Avoid childlike designs, like charm bracelets, and cheap materials, like plastic beads. If you only have a small budget, invest in one or two high-quality pieces that you can wear with anything. Pearls are a great choice as they are affordable and they always look classy.

3. Avoid Bracelets

Bracelets are beautiful but can be tricky to wear to work. It can often get in the way or hurt your wrist if you’re sitting down and typing a lot during the day. Bracelets also get damaged easily. It can get caught in something or be scratched. If you really want to wear a bracelet to work, we suggest that you keep it simple, and don’t choose something that dangles and jingles - the noise would drive your co-workers nuts. 

4. Take Cues from Existing Employees

The easiest way to make sure your jewelry is acceptable for your new employer, look at what your new colleagues are wearing. If the dress code is formal, make sure you keep it simple and understated. If you’re working in a more creative and fashion-forward environment, you’ll have more freedom with what you can wear.

Pearl Jewelry Recommendations for the Workplace

Below are some products we suggest when choosing pearl jewelry to wear at work. Also, check out our online store – you’re bound to find something that suits your style:

Simple Earrings

We suggest that you opt for simple earrings, for instance, stud earrings with something extra, like the Meteor Earrings. If you prefer drop earrings, keep it short and light so that it doesn’t hurt your ears after a long day, or even worse, get caught in a pile of files you’re asked to carry. Our Tahitian Beauty Pearl Earrings are an all-time favorite. 

Simple Necklace

As a general rule, your necklace should not fall past your bust line, but keep your outfit in mind when choosing your necklace. A simple string of pearls always looks professional and polished, but you can play with different styles, like our White Dancing Pearl Necklace or the Piece of Love Pearl Necklace.

Pearl Pendant

There are more style options when it comes to pearl pendants, from delicate and feminine to something a bit more robust. Pearl pendants look great with a V-neck blouse or button shirt, but it can work with all kinds of necklines. Some of our favorites are the Golden Trinity Sparkling Edison Pearl Necklace and the Blooming Flower Pearl Necklace.

Golden Trinity Sparkling Edison Pearl Necklace:

Pearl Ring

A pearl ring is a great addition to your work outfit. Make sure your rings aren’t too bulky – you still want to be able to use your hands! We like the Double Edison Pearls Ring and the Panther Pearl Ring for something a bit different.

Double Edison Pearls Ring:

Pearl Brooch

If you think brooches are only suitable for your grandma and her ‘golden girls’ book club friends, think again! Brooches can be sophisticated, but playful. Adding this Corsage Orchid Pearl Brooch or Silvery Snowflake Pearl Brooch to your jacket or cardigan will make you stand out – in a good way.

Read More

Pearl Jewelry: A Testament to Our Lives

Why do we wear jewelry? Usually, it’s because we like how it makes us look and feel – beautiful and confident. That’s not the only reason, though. Often times there are a much deeper meaning to why we choose to beautify our outfits with jewelry.

Why Our Ancestors Donned Jewelry

For almost 75,000 years, humans adorned themselves with jewelry for different reasons.

Jewelry was often worn by emperors, pharaohs, kings, and queens as a symbol of status, wealth, and power. Only the rich could afford valuable gems and metals like pearls, diamonds, gold, silver, and other precious stones. However, that didn’t keep the less fortunate from embellishing themselves: Throughout the ages, people often created jewelry from leather, wood, shells, seeds, feathers, and other beautiful items they could lay their hands on.

Jewelry was also believed to have supernatural and healing powers. One such example is the ancient Egyptians. A favorite, the Eye of Horus with a green or turquoise stone set as the pupil, represented protection and health.

Evil eye jewelry and talismans, which was first recorded about 5,000 years ago by the Mesopotamians, was believed to protect the wearer from evil forces. This symbol is found in Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu cultures.

The sapphire was priced as a sacred stone by the ancient Greeks who often wore this magnificent stone when seeking guidance from the Oracle of Delphi. Sapphires were also believed to promote wisdom and spiritual truth.

The Deeper Meaning of Jewelry

Today, jewelry is still symbolic to us. An infinity sign depicts everlasting love, and jewelry are often worn as a symbol of faith, like a cross to Christianity or yin-yang to Buddhists.  

We also wear real pearl jewelry as a way to express ourselves or to make a statement. With so many different designs and materials to choose from, we select something that we like, although we often can’t exactly explain why we like it.

We collect jewelry from our travels to remind us of the good times we’ve had and the people we’ve met along the way.

Jewelry often has personal significance, like the heirloom pearl necklace your Grandma gave you or a wedding ring passed down from one generation to the next. But jewelry doesn’t have to be passed down from a relative to have personal significance. A bracelet a husband bought for his wife or wedding jewelry you bought for yourself are representations of the love we have for each other.

Similarly, graduation jewelry is a symbol of our achievements and the endurance we had for sticking to our commitments even through difficult times.

Graduation Jewelry: A Testament to Your Achievements

Graduation Day is a significant milestone in many young women’s lives. Why don’t you choose pearl jewelry to stand testament to your achievements this year?

Visit our shop to find pearl jewelry to your taste to complete your outfit and to act as a reminder of what you’ve achieved.

Read More

The World Is Your Oyster and You Are the Pearl Graduation Wisdom

“The world is your oyster” is a phrase that was created by William Shakespeare. And it’s a message that’s never truer than on the day you graduate from college.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this phrase can be interpreted as “one is in a position to profit from the opportunities that life, or a particular situation, may offer.” Or in other words, you can do anything and go anywhere you want.

You have spent years preparing for this day. No doubt there were a lot of stress, tears, and sacrifices you had to make to get to this point. And now, you’re faced with the choice of which road you’re going to take next.

Pearls and Oysters of Life

Pearls are formed from an irritation. A foreign object, like a grain of sand, finds an opening into the oyster. It’s painful and irritating to the oyster, and to protect itself, the oyster starts to cover the foreign object with nacre. Many layers later, a beautiful pearl is formed.

All oysters produce pearls though real pearl jewelry is rare at Timeless Pearl. Studying is not easy – it takes courage and hard work – and many don’t make it. But you persevered, you learned from the lessons life gave you, and you evolved into a beautiful, shining pearl.  

The world is full of opportunities – you just have to take it! You determine your own success.

How does success look like for you? How does your pearl look like?

·         Is it finding your dream job?

·         Is it making a lot of money so you can travel and see the world?

·         Is it making a difference in the lives of family members or in the community?

·         Is it finding meaning in life?

·         Or is it finding someone special to share your incredible life with?

Whatever that pearl looks like for you, remember that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Yes, there are more difficult times and stumbling blocks that lie ahead. There are mistakes to be made and lessons to be learned. That is part of life.

But what matters is how you handle these obstacles and what you learn and how you grow from it.

Pearl Jewelry: A Reminder of Possibility

As you are preparing for your graduation ceremony, what better accessories to choose from than pearls? Visit our shop and choose pearl jewelry to remind you of your beauty and the possibilities available to you.

And after graduation, every time life throws you a curveball, you can wear your pearl jewelry to remind you of your strength, what you’ve endured and accomplished so far, and that you can do anything you set your mind to.

Let the pearl that is you shine unapologetically.

Read More

Everything You Need to Know about Tahitian Black Pearls

Exquisite, exotic, and mysterious – black pearls have captivated hearts for centuries.

Natural black pearls are extremely rare, and only the super-rich were able to afford these magnificent gems. But a few decades ago, all that changed. Black pearls are now cultivated and farmed for the enjoyment of the everyday woman. Although still rare, compared to the total amount of cultured pearls produced in the world, it is now within reach of more women.

The jewelry we wear contribute to the richness of the story of our lives, and no gem more so than black pearls. In this blog we discuss everything you need to know about Tahitian and other black pearls, so you can also enrich your life with these exquisite black pearl gemstones.

Types Of Saltwater Pearls

Tahitian pearls are saltwater pearls, in other words, they’re grown in the ocean. Saltwater pearls tend to be more lustrous, or glossy, than freshwater pearls, which makes them more valuable.

There are four common types of saltwater black pearl necklace from TimelessPearl

Akoya pearls: The classic white pearl cultivated off the coast of Japan.

White South Sea pearls: Rare, valuable, and large pearls grown primarily in the waters of Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.

Golden South Sea pearls: The same origin as White South Sea pearls, but with a richer color.

Tahitian black pearls: Dark and exotic black saltwater pearls cultivated around the French Polynesian islands. They’re also called Black South Sea pearls.

Where Do Black Pearls Come From?

Although we’re most familiar with Tahitian black pearls, that’s not the only type of black pearl that is produced. There is another location also situated in the south-central Pacific Ocean:

95% of the world’s black pearls are produced around Tahiti Island, French Polynesia. This pearl is called the Tahitian Black Pearl.

4% of black pearls are produced in the Penglin Island and Manihiki Island, which are part of the Cook Islands.

The Symbolism Of Black Pearls

There are many legends and myths surrounding black pearls. The most famous is the one of Princess Bora Bora. As the story goes, the god of peace and fertility, Oro, gifted the princes with a black pear to symbolize his eternal love.

Read more about this legend.

Black Pearl History

Throughout history, the European royal families have always loved pearls, as can often be seen in old pictures and paintings. In these portraits, white pearls are most prominent, but black pearls were also popular, but very rare.

In the mid-19th century, a large number of fishing boats traveled from Sydney, San Francisco, and Chile to Tahiti to catch the Pinctada margaritifera, also called the Black-lip pearl oyster, in which black pearls are commonly found.  

Not only did they open the shells to gather the pearls, but they also used the shells themselves to make buttons. Before buttons were made primarily with plastic, shells were cut to use as buttons. The black inner layer of these black pearl shells made the most beautiful buttons.

However, after more than a century of overfishing, by the mid-20th century, the black-lip pearl oysters in Tahiti were on the verge of extinction.

A New Dawn: Tahitian Black Pearl Farming

The pearl culturing experiment started in Tahiti in 1961, using Japanese pearl farming techniques, but, it took a few years before black pearl culturing became successful.

In 1966 the first pearl farms were built, but they weren’t very successful. It was only in 1972 when the first Tahitian black pearls were exported to other countries – about 1,563 kilograms.

  

How Are Black Pearls Formed?

Tahitian pearls take more than 24 months to form inside the oyster shell. A small bead is surgically inserted into the pearl sac, and during its growth period, hundreds of thin layers of nacre and vermiculite crystals are secreted to envelop the beads and to finally form the pearl.

Once the nacre covering the bead is thick enough, the pearl farmer would open the oyster with the black pearl inside to remove the gem.

Black Pearl Colors

Contrary to popular belief, not all Tahitian cultured pearls are black. These pearls come in a remarkable range of colors, including creamy white, green, iridescent peacock green, blue, purple, gray, silver, blue-black, gray-black, brown-black, iron gray, and of course, deep black.

Pearls get their colors from the shell they grow in. The black-lipped oyster has a thick inner black shell and secretes this dark nacre to cover the bead implanted in the shell sac, which is why some pearls are black. The nearer this bead is to the shell wall, the darker the bead will be. The darker the color, the higher the value and the price.

The most popular black pearl colors are the rainbow-like colors, like peacock, rich purple, and sea blue. The strong metallic luster on these pearls changes as you rotate the pearl. These pearls are more valuable, and also more expensive, with peacock green at the top of that list.

Matching black pearl beads to form a string of black pearls is extremely difficult as most beads have a different color or shade.

Black Pearl Luster

The luster of a pearl refers to the intensity of the reflection on the surface of the pearl. Pearls with great luster are glossy and you can even see your own image on the surface of the pearl, like a mirror. The greater the luster, the higher the value of a black pearl.

Pearls with a more matt-like luster look a bit dull and therefore have a lower value.

Black Pearl Sizes

Tahitian black pearls are typically between 8-14 mm in size, which is much larger than the classic white Akoya pearl.

Most black pearls are between 9-10mm. A black pearl larger than 15mm is rare, and those exceeding 17mm is a rare treasure.

Black Pearl Shapes

Pearls are rarely perfectly round, but as can be expected, round pearls are the most popular shape and therefore also the most expensive.

Tahitian pearls typically come in five different shapes:

Circular or semicircular

Oval or button-shaped

Drop-shaped

Circle-shaped

Semi-Baroque or Baroque

The Surface Of Black Pearls

The surface of pearls often has little bumps, threads, wrinkles, and spots, which makes it part of their beauty.

Of course, the more perfect the surface, the higher the value.

Where To Buy Black Pearls?

If you’re ready to enrich your life with the mysterious black pearl, you can check out our online shop for black pearl jewelry:  

Read More