Sapphire

Sapphire and ruby are the same mineral, corundum. Red corundum is ruby; every other color is sapphire.

Each color has its own cause. Blue sapphire’s color comes from iron and titanium, pink sapphire’s from chromium, and yellow sapphire’s from iron. White sapphire is colorless corundum. Padparadscha is a rare pinkish-orange sapphire, named for the lotus flower.

The Design Studio offers blue, pink, yellow and white sapphire.

It lasts. Sapphire is 9 on the Mohs scale, its toughness is excellent and it has no cleavage, so it can be worn every day, in prongs, a bezel or a halo.

The color, in almost any shade, and a September birthday.

Ask what has been done to the stone. Heating is the common treatment for sapphire; others include lattice diffusion. In the United States, a treatment has to be disclosed when it isn’t permanent, needs special care or significantly affects value.

Ask whether it is natural or laboratory-grown: a laboratory-grown sapphire has to be labeled as such in the United States.

Anyone who wants color in a ring worn every day, and anyone with a September birthday. White sapphire suits someone who wants a colorless stone that isn’t a diamond.

The Design Studio sets a sapphire from 4 to 12 mm long in any of its shapes and shows its millimeters and an approximate weight. By the studio’s figures, corundum (specific gravity 4.0) weighs about 1.1 times a diamond (3.52) of the same size.

What moves a sapphire’s cost: its size, its color and clarity, any treatment, and whether it is natural or laboratory-grown; then the metal and the setting. Sara quotes the finished piece after a consultation.

Warm soapy water and a soft brush are safe. Ultrasonic and steam cleaners are usually safe for an untreated or heated sapphire, but not for one that is fracture-filled, cavity-filled or dyed, so it helps to know which yours is. Pacific Jewel rings come back to Sara for a clean and an inspection whenever you like.