White is the classic akoya bodycolor, often with a rose overtone, and the silver-lipped Pinctada maxima oyster gives white and silver South Sea pearls.
Pearl colors
A pearl's color has three parts: bodycolor, overtone and orient (GIA). Here is where each color comes from naturally, and what to check before you believe it.
All pearl colors
Natural pink comes mostly from freshwater pearls, which grow in soft pastels.
Peach is one of the natural pastel colors of freshwater pearls (GIA), and bead-nucleated freshwater pearls such as Edison pearls come in it too.
Deep natural golds come from the gold-lipped form of the Pinctada maxima oyster, in colors from pale champagne to deep gold (GIA).
Silver is a Tahitian bodycolor and a South Sea color from the silver-lipped oyster.
"Black pearls" almost always means Tahitian pearls, from the black-lipped oyster in French Polynesia.
Peacock is a Tahitian overtone: green with hints of rose or purple over a dark bodycolor.
Green is a natural Tahitian bodycolor, and green overtones show on Sea of Cortez pearls.
Brown is a natural Tahitian bodycolor, but the deep brown "chocolate" pearls sold in the 2000s were studied by GIA and found to be black Tahitian cultured pearls whose organic material had been bleached.
