“So You Want To Know How This Pearl Gets Its ‘comet Tail.’ The Tail Itself Will Not Develop If

“So you want to know how this pearl gets its ‘comet tail.’ The tail itself will not develop if healing takes place where the incision was made AND the bead is covered by the sac. The only way for this pearl to develop is if the incision has a void next to it and after the bead has been placed in the vacant sac (this is when the keshi pearl is harvested). The shape and size of the tail may vary from time to time, depending on how much space is allowed for the tail to ‘grow.’ It also depends on the spherical bead as well. The tail is created when the bead doesn’t fit all the way in the sac. Nacre then fills that void.

Here’s an example that might help illustrate the process. Take a plastic grocery bag and place a small rubber ball in it. The ball fits in the bag but it does not fill the bag entirely. Now pretend the ball is a spherical bead and the bag is the sac. Since there is so much space to fill, the nacre starts to form around the bead, thus creating a tail.”