Mother of Pearl

Today we'd like to give you some information of nacre, pronounced "nay-ker", or more commonly called mother of pearl. In fact it truly is a pearl, while it may not be the typical round pearls we think of when it comes to pearls it is made by the same organisms that makes pearls, instead of forming around a piece of material the pearls forms on the interior of the shell of the organism, which includes pearl oysters, freshwater pearl mussels, abalone, and several families of mollusks. Today they use mother of pearls as the material for culturing pearls, it is cut into squares, then rounded by a machine and finally inserted into the oysters as the seed for a pearl. You can read more about the world of pearls in our previous blog.

The use of nacre has been dated back to the ancient Egyptians at almost 4000 BC, far out dating the use of traditional pearls by several thousand years. Today mother of pearl is used in everything from buttons and musical instruments to jewelry and decorative wall hangings.

Mother of pearl has a beautiful iridescent quality to it that can range from pure white to the fabulous multi-color varieties from the abalone, which is one of the most popular as well ranging from pink to green to silver and orange.

We use mother of pearl as small highlights as well as larger full pendants, we hope to use it more often but for now here are a few of our favorites that use this wonderful jewel.

• Mother of Pearl Pendant Necklace
• Mother of Pearl Engraved Pendant Necklace
• Simple Briolette and Silver Leaf Charm Necklace