These freshwater pearls are a lovely shiny, gray color with some pink highlights. The nacre is thick and has no holes showing the irritant bead beneath. There is good size uniformity within the strand in spite of the mixture of square and diamond shapes. If you are looking for some shape interest within a necklace or a nice strand to cut apart for earrings, this is the strand for you. The diamonds and squares are flat, measuring about 4 mm wide. The pearls are mostly smooth, but some faces of the pearls do have a few rough patches. Each strand is 16 inches long and contains approximately 31 pearls per strand.