New member :) And a question :)

[GoldPearl]

Hello!

I just joined today and I love pearls. I recently started learning more about them and am very happy to have found this forum with knowledgeable and passionate members!

I want to ask a question - I like my jewellery collection to be valuable and of high quality but I also like to have my share of fun pieces with exotic designs or colours to be worn once in a while with a casual ensemble. I wanted to ask what are everyone’s thoughts on dyed FWP. Do you have a favourite piece made of pearls dyed an unnatural colour? What’s your favourite colour?

 

[86Corvettegirl]

Welcome, GoldPearl, to the forum. Lots of great members here who are willing to share info.
To answer your question, I generally prefer natural colors....pearls come in so many colors naturally that I tend to gravitate to those. I have fun pieces to wear like fireballs, free form soufflé, iridescent baroques, etc that I wear.

 

[GoldPearl]

Thank you for the reply I am still learning more about pearls and identifying them.

 

[CathyKeshi]

Hi GoldPearl, I too prefer natural colors, fresh or saltwater pearls now. But I, like many here, first started with some dyed freshwwater pearls. They can be a very pretty, inexpensive and fun option to play with. My favorites were the deep "black" ones, which were always a lovely iridescent navy blue with rainbow colors in the best versions. So maybe still an option for the fun side of your collection. There are also a huge variety of natural colors to explore, at reasonable prices in freshwater especially. Nothing wrong with wanting to have a "fine" side of your collection and a "fun" side Sometimes the 2 will coalesce into the same pieces, sometimes not; especially when first starting a collection. I would say, explore carefully. Some dyed pearls are much better quality; some far from, and the seller should be selling with full disclosure and pricing accordingly. You do want to be careful of places like eBay, where sellers all over are selling inexpensive poor quality dyed freshwater as "genuine Tahitians" etc. Have fun, and oh, and welcome to Pearl-Guide !

 

[BWeaves]

I have some dyed freshies that I bought before I joined this forum. They don't get as much love from me as they used to, because I've since bought natural colored pearls, and now that I can tell the difference, I prefer the natural colors. But I still love my original purchases. They were inexpensive and still look nice.

 

[GoldPearl]

Thank you CathyKeshi and BWeaves for your replies! I loved reading your thoughts. I bought a dyed blue pearl bracelet really cheap which I love very much, almost the same as my expensive and larger natural-coloured white and pink pearl bracelet. I think Golden south sea and white south sea pearls do take my breath away though. In FWP I love white, peach, pink, lavender and so on. But once in a while exotic colours look really nice to me and usually they are really inexpensive. I don’t buy costume jewellery anymore but these I still fall for, especially rather unique ones.

Does anyone know if golden colour naturally occurs in FWP? I am eyeing a beautiful golden FWP necklace 11mm size and the price is rather high for FWP but the seller says golden colour without dye is rare.

 

[Katbran]

Well it's not really a natural colour for Freshwaters. The exception might be with Edison/Ming pearls where you can get a gold colour. It's not the same as GSS pearls , mostly it's more like a Golden Apricot colour. But there are lots of shade. Again, this is generally only in bead nucleated Freshwaters.
I'll see if I can find a photo that shows some 'gold' Freshies with GSS

Ok - you can see the golden apricot ones - largest . Once very Apricot gold. And three that are Gold - ish With a GSS mid tone strand in back.

 

[GoldPearl]

Thank you very much! I guess I wouldn’t take the risk to buy those pearls then. Because their origin is not clearly mentioned by the jewellery and they don’t seem to know it either.

 

[GoldPearl]

It is really hard to find good quality saltwater pearls in India. Freshwater yes we can find good ones but they need to be sought out carefully.

 

[Rianne]

I love the natural colours but order yesterday blue metallic. Dyed ofcourse but the pixtures screamed at me take me, buy me and make yourself earrings with me��
Haven't recive them yet...

 

[SydK]

I bought a couple of dyed pieces when I first became interested in pearls, and I really enjoyed wearing them. I don’t wear them as much any more, not because I have anything against dyed pearls, but because as I learnt more about pearls, I came to realise that my dyed pearls weren’t great quality. My naturally-coloured pearls have generally nicer shapes and lustre, so I generally reach for those. But I have a strand of dark purple nuggets that are fun and still get worn.
I think buying relatively inexpensive dyed pearls is a great way to figure out what you like to wear in pearls before making a major investment - you can test what looks good on you, as well as figuring out what is most important to you in terms of size, shape, surface, lustre and depth of colour, since very few of us can afford strand/s of huge, round, shiny, well-matched, flawless, iridescent pearls with interesting overtones
Incidentally, I bought a couple of strands of dyed goldens from various sellers, and they were all Very Bad - I think gold is tricky.

Here’s my purple nuggets

 

[BWeaves]

SydK. I like your dyed freshwater nuggets.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

I think dyed pearls bad rep comes from the fact that nearly all dyed pearls are of awful quality. Personally, I still wear and love a string of "dove grey" dyed keshi.

As long as they are sold honestly, with full disclosure, dyed pearls are great. They can be a fun introduction to pearls, a lifelong love for variety or just a flirtation with pearls for people who are not going to spend a lot more money for expensive pearls.

Except dyed black akoyas. I have yet to see a pretty one. (yes, just my personal but strong opinion)