Is there any difference between those two? Would be nice to alias them in one way or another otherwise.

Such an alias to me would just seem incorrect. Pearls may be used as beads, but they don't have to be used as such. For example post #23788 is tagged pearls, because of the pearl earrings she's wearing.

Even if pearls was used only for the bead-like use of them, the problem would be that pearl couldn't be aliased to bead. It'd be too confusing that pearls = beads, when pearl doesn't.

Agreed with NWF, they're different concepts. You could also have a pearl in an oyster. That can't be a bead.

Another reason this wouldn't work is that pearls are sometimes definitely not bead-shaped.

http://www.muscatine.k12.ia.us/was/history/pearlbuttons/images/rough%20pearls.jpg

Then again, irregular pearls probably would not show up in Danbooru-qualified artwork. Then again, there're a few things like Top Gear and Dr Pepper, so who knows?

Edit: Linked different image. Hopefully this one is less phallic.

Eurgh, some of those pearls look like dongs...

Well, with the "a pearl may sometimes be by itself" thing, would it qualify for plural-to-singular?

I thought beads were a name given to pearls when forming a necklace, but I've seen on wiki that beads weren't necessarily made of pearls. Didn't know. This word has no equivalent I know of in my language.
So yeah, no alias, sorry.

I suppose we could still alias pearls and pearl.
I was also about to suggest implicating beads to jewelry, but since anal_beads are apparently mistagged as beads sometimes I'm not sure if it's really useful right now.

I wouldn't alias beads to jewelry anyway, since they appear in other contexts. I'm not sure how often they'd be seen as much here, but beads are used in bead chains, seat covers, trivets, charms, etc.

So this word can be used in those cases too. I learn new things every day here, heh.

pearls ↔ pearl still?

pearls → pearl sounds appropriate

Aliased pearls -> pearl.