What is Moissanite?
True Moissanite is a very rare form of silicon carbide first discovered in a meteorite crater, in 1893 by French scientist Henri Moissan, a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry.
After many decades of attempts, it was successfully synthesized in a laboratory and is now the modern-day lower cost alternative to diamonds, even exceeding diamonds in light reflectance!
It is an eco-friendly and cost-effective choice compared to mined diamonds, as it doesn't involve the environmental or ethical concerns associated with traditional diamond mining.
Moissanite has become especially popular for engagement rings and fine jewelry due to its striking visual similarity to diamonds, durability, and significantly lower price.
Moissanite color ratings:
Colorless: D, E, F.
Near-colorless: G, H, I. J.
It continues from K to X, but those grades are rarely used in Jewellery.
There are no A, B, C nor Y, Z grades.
It also has a clarity (flaw) grade...
FL & IF are rarely used in jewellery as they cost almost as much as their diamond equivalent and everyone who can afford that will go the extra mile for the diamond.
VVS1, the clarity grade used in all of our moissanite jewellery, is gradually finding its way into very high end jewellery, so it may not be forever that it remains so affordable to us mere mortals! Could be a good investment to hand down to your kids. Who knows?
Moissanite is rated 9.25 on the Mohs hardness scale. Diamond being 10.
It only became available to the Jewellery trade in 1998, so is still a relatively unknown gem.
Due to the high complexity in growing Moissanite, less than a handful of companies in the world produce it.