Cultured pearls are an effort made by pearl farmers to respond to the demand for pearls in the jewelry marketplace and maintain the balance of nature. Culturing pearls began at the beginning of the 20th century, when several people invented the techniques required in order to cultivate pearls.

By introducing a foreign object, such as a piece of tissue, or a mother-of-pearl bead, into the mollusk, farmers are able to create the pearl. The automatic reaction of the mollusks is to deposit layers of nacre (pearl) around the object, to stop it from irritating.

Cultured pearls can be created in either freshwater or saltwater, and in different types of mollusks.

Cultured freshwater pearls are farmed in freshwater, and are grown within mussels. The irritants introduced into mussels are much smaller than saltwarer oysters (as mussels are generally smaller) and as a result, freshwater pearls tend to be much smaller than saltwater pearls. The technique for cultivating freshwater pearls is advantageous in that it allows any given mussel to produce twenty pearls or more within one year.

Cultured saltwater pearls are pearls farmed in salt water, and grown within oysters. For each oyster, a maximum of one pearl can be grown, unlike freshwater pearls. Resultantly, saltwater pearls are much more rare, and consequently more expensive than their freshwater counterparts. Best known for producing cultured saltwater pearls are the countries: Tahiti, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines and Australia.

The fact that ideal environmental conditions can frequently be provided, meaning it takes a much shorter amount of time for a pearl to be formed at a farm, is just one of the advantages cultured pearls have over natural pearls. Nonetheless, pearls can take several years to fully develop and are not harvested too quickly avoiding a compromise of the quality of the pearl nacre.

South Sea pearls, and Tahitian pearls take between 2 and 3 years to form. Akoya pearls from Japan will usually take less time, at under 2 years. Freshwater pearls require the least amount of time, typically taking just 18 to 24 months. The longer a pearl is left to form, the larger and more beautiful it will likely be.