AN INFORMAL MOISSANITE REVIEW

I know I don’t need to tell you that manmade stuff is getting awfully close to mimicking nature, do I? We have manmade stones of the landscaping variety and then we have manmade stones trying their very hardest to look like real mine cut diamonds. They’ve been at it for years! We’re all familiar with CZ fake diamonds. We thought that DeBeers was going to be run out of business, didn’t we? Yes, it looked like we could shine like the stars on the cheap until the 3 carat CZ began to get cloudy in a short while. At least mine did and I noticed that nobody else wore their fake diamonds very long either.

Now comes the new fake lookalike diamond on the block: moissanite. Moissanite stones beat the pants off CZ hands down no doubt, but are they just as cool as diamonds? Well, here's my completely informal, unbiased review of moissanite.

Some friends of mine have gone on and an about moissanite for years now, but I have to tell you that I put a couple of moissanite pieces side by side with some less than perfect diamonds today and moissanite was just not that impressive! For one thing, several of the moissanite stones had a distinctly greenish tint! GREEN! And not in an emerald or peridot kind of way. Imagine what a diamond with hangover might look like. After getting up close and magnified in the presence of flourescent lighting the green around the gills look lightened to a pale yellow. Not a lovely rare canary yellow diamond yellow, just an off-putting color. To be fair, all moissanite stones are not the same, there are different levels of moissanites. Maybe I got a bad batch?

Granted, you could put some of the better moissanite stones in a spectacular setting and pass them off to people that don’t know what they are looking at, but YOU would know, wouldn’t you? If it were me, I’d always be paranoid about somebody talking about that fake diamond that I was lying about. Moissanite costs a tenth of what a real diamond costs, and of course you pay the same for a comparable setting of gold or platinum. I’m just not sure the savings are substantial enough to settle for a moissanite tennis bracelet, ring or earrings. Fake is fake in my opinion and I’d rather do without or get something genuine for a cheaper price.

10 CARAT DIAMOND TENNIS BRACELET or a 2 CARAT DIAMOND BRACELET for the same price

You don't have to get a 10 carat diamond tennis bracelet for it to look good on your arm. In fact you can get a lot of complements on a rather inexpensive or even CHEAP bracelet. A filled heart diamond tennis bracelet make use a few diamonds on the connecting links and may even come in 10kt gold rather than 14kt gold.

The set of the diamonds in a less expensive piece is very important. The sparkle depends on reflection of light from various angles. A large and perfect diamond can stand on its own but lesser quality stones might need a little help. A 10 carat diamond tennis bracelet constructed out ofth flawed, muddy or low quality diamonds may be more difficult to set in a way that will camouflage the defects than a bracelet set with smaller diamonds.

There are cases where bigger is not better and you may find that this holds especially true in the world of fine jewelry. A 10 carat diamond tennis bracelet sounds great in theory but may not look nearly as good as a 2 carat diamond bracelet you actually see it on your arm. A finely styled bracelet in the two carat diamond range is much more attractive in my opinion. Of course there are those people that aren't that interested in style and just want bragging rights and certainly bling sizes are running larger than life right now.

Expect to pay big bucks for a 10 carat diamond tennis bracelet set with diamonds of good color, cut and clarity. Recently I have seen appraisals for diamond tennis bracelets of this type for upwards of $18,000.00. Of course you might find one for sale at a discount on auction but be certain that you get buyer's insurance so that you are covered in case that the dream 10 carat diamond tennis bracelet doesn't turn into a nightmare.