Souffle Pearl
A large hollow freshwater pearl, grown around mud that is later washed out. Very big and very light.
A souffle pearl is grown around a packet of dried mud inserted into a mussel that has already produced a pearl. The mud swells, the mussel coats it, and the core is rinsed away afterwards.
The result is a hollow pearl, often 15mm to 20mm across, weighing almost nothing for its size.
Surfaces tend to be wrinkled and metallic, in bronzes, golds and coppers.
When you are buying
The most comfortable way to wear a genuinely large pearl, because it weighs a fraction of a solid one. Being hollow, it will crack under a sharp knock, so it belongs in earrings and pendants rather than rings.
Fireball Pearl
A freshwater pearl with a comet-like tail, formed when the mussel partly rejects the bead.
Baroque
Any pearl with no axis of symmetry. Once treated as a reject, now the shape most associated with contemporary pearl design.
Freshwater Pearl
A pearl grown inside a mussel in a river or lake, rather than an oyster in the sea. Most pearl jewellery sold today is freshwater.
Edison Pearl
A large bead-nucleated freshwater pearl grown in China, reaching South Sea sizes at freshwater prices.