Mark Kane Designs - Tahitian Black Pearl Jeweler

My business is Fine Pearl Jewelry. They're all original designs and we make it all here in Hawaii. From the wax to the cast, polishing, setting, 100% is done here. The thing that separates me from my competitors is that my designs are on the simpler side and I think the local people really appreciate the fact that it is simple. It's more casual and yet dressy if you want it to be. There are some pieces that have incorporated a lot of diamonds. Most of them don't have diamonds. It's the pearl that brings the elegance to the piece in my opinion. The number one thing that you must consider about buying a piece is, am I going to wear it? A lot of people buy it and they tell me, oh, I keep it in the safe all the time. I keep on telling them, no, if you're going to buy it, wear it. You need to wear the pearl. It's actually good to wear the pearl. It absorbs some of your oils and hydrates the pearl. Pearls can range in colors from anywhere from a white to black and virtually anything in between. I use a lot of black Tahitian pearls, but I also use the golden South Sea pearls, which can come from Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia. And I also use the white South Sea pearl, which also comes from Australia and Indonesia. It's hard to, if you're not a professional, tell the difference between a fake pearl, let's say, and a real pearl. When I go on a pearl buying trip, I virtually look at thousands and thousands of pearls. I hand select every one. And I might only come home with a handful of pearls, maybe a hundred pearls after looking at 10,000 pearls. And it's very difficult to find the nice fancy colored pearls. Well, you can buy a very nice handcrafted piece of jewelry from us and not pay all the overhead. It's a very direct sale. It's truly the factory to you.