There are fresh water pearls and salt water pearls

Necklaces, ear rings, and bracelets.

The difference between Freshwater and Saltwater pearls is luster. The Freshwater pearls have a softer luster, a glow that comes from deep within the pearl. Saltwater pearls, which may be a similar size to Freshwater pearls have a more brilliant superficial luster. The difference is due to the type of mollusk used to produce the pearls and the thickness of the nacre. Freshwater pearls have thicker nacre as seen in the explanation below.

Freshwater pearls are grown in lakes, ponds and rivers. A freshwater cultured pearl is started by inserting a small piece of mantle tissue as the pearl starter in a mussel which will create up to 50 pearls. It takes up to six years to grow the pearls.

Salt water pearls are grown in oysters and yield only one pearl per oyster. This makes salt-water pearls more expensive than freshwater pearls. Countries known as producer of saltwater pearl are Burma, Indonesia, Thailand, and Philippines in South East Asia; Australia and Tahiti in South Pacific, especially in Tahiti, you'll find the beautiful black pearls.

Nacre: Nacre is the part of the pearl that has grown from the seed or nucleus of the pearl. Nacre is the substance (calcium) that the oysters secrets to coat the nucleus. The thicker the less likely the pearl can be chipped or damaged.

Thickness of Nacre coating and length of time to cultivate.
• Japanese Akoya pearls about a half-millimeter and less than two years.
• Tahitian pearls-about 2 to 3 millimeters two to three years.
• South Sea pearls 2 to 6 millimeters two to three years.
• Freshwater pearls mostly all nacre up to six years.

Freshwater pearls are all pearl -- this is a big selling point for freshwater pearls. Because there is no hard nucleus inserted in freshwater pearls, freshwater pearls are almost all nacre.

Only South Sea pearls have a nacre coating as thick as that of freshwater pearls. However, for South Sea pearls to have the same thickness nacre coating of a 10mm freshwater pearl a South Sea pearl should be 18mm in size. You will have to spend a small fortune to have it. It only costs a small fraction of that money to buy a 10mm, top quality freshwater pearl.

Colors
Freshwater pearls come in a far wider range of colors than seawater pearls. By varying metals added to the water on a freshwater pearl farm, the colors of freshwater pearls can be very different.

Shapes
Freshwater pearls are almost any shape that you can imagine: round, drop, rice, oval, semi-round, circle, button, or ringed, baroque and semi-baroque. The round shape more expensive simply because it in higher demand.

Comparable Sizes
Longer cultivation periods and improved methods have increased the size of freshwater pearls to the range of 9 to 16 mm--equivalent to South Sea pearls in size yet more aggressively priced.
Quality
As testimony to China's achievement, good freshwater pearls are now round enough, clean and lustrous enough to pass as Japanese Akoya and South Sea pearls.

Summary
Freshwater pearl farmers have improved their cultivation methods and processing techniques. Creating a pearl that is much less expensive, yet its quality rivals that of the more expensive saltwater pearls. Salt water pearls have always been preferred over freshwater pearls but in reality fresh water pearls are equal or superior in quality. The main difference is simply supply vs demand. One mussel can produce up to fifty freshwater pearls whereas one saltwater oyster only produces one pearl.

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