How can you tell if a string of pearls are real or man made?
Real pearls have a rough texture to surface. Man-made ones are smooth. It’s really very easy to tell the difference. Now, this being askville and I have the internet to back me up so I looked on line and I found out that the tooth test is not that good anymore with cultured pearls because the nacre layer isn’t sometimes very thick. It seems like the sun test might be the best home test. I’m going to try it with my pearls. My motto is live and learn. Here’s what a jewelers sight says: There are real pearls and then there are fake pearls. If you are buying pearls, you may be able to identify fake pearls by their name: simulated, faux, glass, plastic, resin, artificial, manmade. Genuine pearls come in a variety of ‘flavors’. There are natural pearls and cultured pearls. Real pearls may come from freshwater or saltwater and from a variety of molluscs (not just oysters). To further confuse things, there are also shell pearls and genuine pearls which have had treatments applied to them, such
