Pure Pearls Glossary
Potato
Lumpy and roughly oval, with visible dimples. The most economical real freshwater pearl.
Potato pearls are short, irregular ovals with soft creases, named for the obvious resemblance.
They are the entry point of the freshwater market and are usually strung in multiple lines to give the piece body.
When you are buying
Perfectly honest jewellery at the lowest real-pearl price. Worth knowing that a listing describing pearls only as freshwater, with no shape stated and a very low price, is usually selling potato.
Potato pearl pieces
3 pieces in the collection right now, from ₹2,250.
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Rice Pearl
A small elongated freshwater pearl shaped like a grain of rice, usually with visible surface rippling.
Baroque
Any pearl with no axis of symmetry. Once treated as a reject, now the shape most associated with contemporary pearl design.
Semi-Round
Very slightly out of true — round to the eye, measurably not. The best value in the whole shape range.
Not sure what you are being sold?
Paste any pearl description — another shop’s listing, a message from a jeweller, an old certificate — and we will break it down term by term.