Yes. Moissanite is a beautiful, naturally occurring mineral called silicon carbide. It was first discovered in 1893 in a meteor crater in Arizona. As it is exceptionally rare in nature the only way to supply gems to the jewellery market is to recreate it in a lab setting. Moissanite made in a lab has identical properties to its natural counterpart. Just because the moissanite on the market has been made in a lab does not make it fake.

Definitely not. A fake diamond is something that looks similar to a diamond, isn’t a diamond, but is being sold as one anyway for financial gain. Moissanite is sold and marketed as moissanite. It shares many qualities with a diamond, but crucially has its own advantages (extra sparkle, ethical provenance etc) which means that there is no need to pretend it is a diamond.

No. They have more sparkle than a diamond, but not so much that they look fake. Moissanite’s greater sparkle is actually one of its most attractive qualities.

Fire refers to a gemstone’s ability to split white light into the rainbow colours of the spectrum: moissanite’s dispersion rate is twice that of a diamond, which means that it produces far more of the eye-catching colourful sparkles that give a stone life.

Brilliance refers to the amount of white light reflected back through a gemstone. Moissanite’s refractive index is slightly higher than a diamond which means that it has slightly more brightness.

Add moissanite’s superior fire and brilliance together and you have a spectacular looking stone that is incredibly vibrant and vivid, but not at all fake looking.

No. Moissanite is made of silicon carbide, while cubic zirconia is made of zirconium dioxide. An exceptionally cheap, man-made stone, cubic zirconia entered the jewellery market in the 1970s. It looked so similar to a diamond that it was soon used to dupe unsuspecting customers into thinking that they had bought a diamond. In recent years cubic zirconia has gotten a rebrand as CZ and is often sold as itself as a cheap diamond alternative on fashion jewellery sites.

Absolutely! At first glance they may appear pretty similar: both give you the wonderful clear sparkle of a diamond. However, while moissanite will retain its same brilliance, colour and clarity for a lifetime (and beyond!) cubic zirconia starts to lose its sparkle after just a few years. Cubic zirconia gets irreversibly cloudy over time as it is a porous stone that absorbs oils from the skin and chemicals and dirt from exposure to everyday life. Cubic zirconia is also less scratch resistant than moissanite and its sharp edges have a tendency to become rounded and dull over time. Put simply: a moissanite engagement ring is a forever ring, a cubic zirconia ring is temporary.

Moissanite is graded according to the same scale as a diamond: colour, clarity, cut and carat. Unlike diamonds, however, moissanite is sized by mm instead of carats. This is because moissanite weighs around 15% less than a diamond, which means that a 1 carat diamond is actually bigger than a 1 carat moissanite.

No. Carat weight does not measure the size of a stone, rather its weight. Different gems have different densities which is why two different gemstones of identicial size can in fact have different carat weights. Since moissanite is 15% lighter than a diamond a 1 carat moissanite is smaller than a 1 carat diamond.

This means that where a round 1 carat diamond would have a diameter of 6.5mm, a 6.5mm moissanite only has a carat weight of 0.88. To avoid confusion in a market used to a correlation between diamond carat weight and size, moissanite is sold by mm size and its diamond equivalent weight.

Absolutely! If you compare a moissanite and diamond of similar colour, clarity, cut and carat weight you will find that the moissanite could be up to 90% cheaper than the diamond.