All that Sparkles

FINE LIVING - Style, Hot Launches, Books, Watches

RISING STARS OF THE GEMVERSE

Among current favourites is the Spinel with its red hue, which was mistakenly identified as a ruby for centuries. It is also found in shades of blue, orange, lavender, pink, and black, and has the same crystal structure as a diamond.

Morganite offers a pale pink to peach spectrum, and hails from the beryl mineral family, which includes emerald, and aquamarine. Tsavorite is a rare green garnet, a thousand times rarer than an emerald, and is part of the cubic crystal system, which allows it to sparkle like a diamond.

The most precious from the Tourmaline family is the neon blue variety known as 'Paraiba tourmaline', followed by the burgundy red hues of 'rubellite'. Other shades include green, pink, brown, blue, yellow, and bi and tri-colour tourmalines popularly known as watermelon and Liddicotite tourmalines.

FRESH FACETS

At first glance, natural and synthetic diamonds may appear indistinguishable, but their origins, tell distinctly different stories, impacting their value. Origin Lab-grown diamonds, often associated with the image of a laboratory, are in fact predominantly mass-produced in factories, mainly in China and some in Surat, India. Unlike natural diamonds, which formed billions of years ago through natural geological processes, synthetic diamonds are recent industrial products.