These are the ones most people instantly identify with the word "Pearl". Some experts prefer the term "loose pearl", "bead nucleated pearl" or "cultured pearl" over the term "round pearl", simply because many cultured pearls do not come out totally round, but in many other shapes.

Loose pearls are produced trough the use of the Mise-Nishikawa grafting technique or the Arizmendi-Nava-McLaurin technique. There two kinds of cultured pearls: the bead-nucleated and the keshi pearls. Marine or saltwater pearls are always bead-nucleated (except for Keshi). This includes every single cultured pearl available today: Akoya, South Seas and Sea of Cortez, be them from China, Japan or any other pearl producing country.

The main reason for this is that, without the use of a round shell nucleus bead, it is very unlikely to obtain a fully round pearl. Even so, fully round pearls only appear in 2 to 25% of a pearl harvest. Of course, we are considering the pearl harvest as being a "good quality harvest", and by this we mean that the pearls were allowed to grow for a minimum of 18 months (nacre thickness of at least 0.8 mm). If we allow the pearls to have a shorter culture period (4-8 months) the pearls will have a very thin coating of nacre and their shapes will be that of the bead: round.

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