GENUINE GEMS VS CREATED & IMITATION
COMPARING REAL GEMSTONES VERSES ALL THE OTHERS
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Walk into just about any jeweler out there and go up to the gemstone case.
Look at all the beautiful rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Chances are, you’ll notice one very odd thing:
The Gemstones are either way too colorful and bright, perfectly clean inside, or that they’re dull, cloudy, and washed out.
Why is this?
Because many jewelers sell both genuine gemstones, and created stones.
So let’s take a closer look at genuine verses created…
Genuine gemstones:
The genuine stones that I’ll talk about are ruby (July’s birthstone), sapphire (September’s birthstone) and emerald (May’s birthstone). These are the ‘precious gemstones‘ and are quite rare in nature. Let me rephrase that, precious gemstones are rare to find good quality!!!
Precious gemstones:
Most genuine precious gems are filled with large, cloudy inclusions. Some have big black spots, others look cracks splitting the stone in half.
Most of these birthstones in ruby, emerald or sapphires are not pretty. That is, unless you spend an arm and a leg for great quality or color.
Created gemstones:
This is why created gemstones were made. To take the place of more expensive real stones, and still look good. But there’s a lot of confusion with these stones…
First off, created gemstones are not “imitation” gemstones. No!
Let me define…
Imitation gemstones:
Imitation stones are fake stones that “look” like the real thing, but aren’t. Usually these types of stones are glass or plastic. Imitation stones tend to dull up and chip easily. The only good selling point with imitation is that they’re ultra cheap.
Best advice: Stay away from them!
Created is different…
Created gemstones are man-made stones that come as close to the real stone as possible.
Created stones like ruby, emerald and sapphire are created with all the same ingredients that mother nature uses.
Growing crystals:
Laboratories take all the chemicals and minerals of a real stone, mix them together into something like a giant pressure cooker, add in heat and pressure (like the Earth did billions of years ago), and then gemstones are grown and formed from those crystals. It’s a fabulous thing.
Almost like a test tube baby… It’s a real baby… You’d never know the difference…
Well, almost.
Comparing gems:
When you compare created stones vs genuine stones on a microscopic level, you’ll see that they are almost identical in molecular composition. The way the crystals are formed and grown, the way they refract light, they are identical twins all the way down to one thing:
Inclusions!
Mother nature has a nasty habit of mixing minerals and chemicals and foreign debris from rocks and irons into genuine stones. This merging causes genuine stones to have dark spots, flaws, clouds and inclusions.
Created stones don’t get these added influences. Being made in a lab controls the composition and keeps flaws and inclusions out of the mix. It doesn’t make it any less of a stone, it just helps make it cleaner.
Personally, I love created stones.
One of my favorites is the created alexandrite.
Created alexandrite is an absolutely beautiful stone. Which is a good thing because it’s almost impossible to find a genuine alexandrite on the market today.
It’s the same way with emeralds. Emeralds are the rarest to find in any great quality. I’ve seen tons of created emeralds that look a thousand times better than a genuine emerald. With precious stones getting more rare, expect to see tons of these created gemstones in stores.
Created gemstones are cleaner, cheaper and just as durable as the real thing.
So the next time you’re pondering buying genuine stones vs created stones, DON’T!
Just buy the one that looks the best (All the while skipping imitation).
After all, a beautiful stone is a beautiful stone.
Cheers! :)