Beauty. Rarity. Durability. Discover the attributes that attract us to coloured gemstones for personal adornment and make gemstones valuable and precious. Coloured gemstones provide the opportunity for uniquely personal expression. Use our guide to buy gemstone jewellery to ensure you select the highest quality gemstone jewellery for your budget.

How Gemstones Are Graded

While gemstones have similar quality factors as diamonds (cut, clarity, colour and carat), the grading criteria are weighted differently for gemstones. For example, colour is by far the most important C for coloured gemstones, whereas cut is usually considered the most important C for diamonds.

Gemstone Colour

Most coloured gemstones derive their beauty from their colour – purples, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, reds. Three factors relate to a gemstone’s colour:

Hue: the pure colour on the spectrum, describes the dominant colour and any additional colours visible in a gem

Tone: the lightness or darkness of a colour. In the GIA colour-grading system, tones range from very light to very dark.

Saturation or intensity: is the purity of the hue.

When buying coloured gemstone jewelry, select what you consider beautiful. Because of the subtle differences in the tone and hue of the coloured gemstone you are considering, look at several to find the one you prefer. Each gem variety has an optimal hue, tone and saturation, your jeweller can show you how each gemstone exhibits its optimal colour.

Gemstone Cut

Gem cutters work to achieve a pleasing and affordable mix of colour, weight and a safe shape for mounting. During creation, a gemstone’s size is constrained by nature. For example, while large and beautiful amethysts are readily available, an alexandrite of large size is extremely rare.

Sparkle adds to the beauty of a well-cut coloured gemstone. The cut of a coloured gemstone describes its shape and how it is fashioned. Some gemstones, such as opal, are suited to a smooth, rounded surface. Others, such as sapphire, are more frequently shaped with a precise series of flat, symmetrical planes, called facets, which make the most pleasing illumination of the gem’s colour. Some cutters today may also use convex or concave facets, shaping coloured gemstone like small sculptures.

Gemstone Clarity

The clarity of coloured gemstones contributes to their beauty. Unless a gemstone is opaque and blocks all light, how light moves through the gemstone affects its beauty. Some gemstones have few internal inclusions to interrupt the passage of light, as is the case with most pieces of tanzanite. Others have characteristic inclusions. For example, some emeralds have a 'jardin' (garden), which makes each gem truly unique.

Gemstone Size

Gemstone weight is measured in carats. The jewelry industry also measures coloured gemstones by dimensions in millimeters in addition to carat weight. Millimeter size is taken into consideration when matching coloured gemstones for a ring, earrings or other types of jewellery.

Gemstone Durability

A gemstone’s ability to be fashioned, mounted and worn is a function of how durable it is – a matter of both hardness and toughness. Some gemstones, such as sapphire, ruby and garnet, are well-suited to an active daily life and work well in rings, bracelets or cufflinks. Others, such as emeralds, pearls and opals call for earrings or necklace mountings to keep them beautifully displayed but out of harm’s way.

Gemstone Enhancements

In certain coloured gemstones, colour occurs naturally. Satisfying hues are intrinsic in some garnets, for example. In other coloured gemstones, the final colour occurs with assistance. For nearly as long as people have worn rubies, we have known how to treat a rough ruby with heat to obtain a desirable red colour. Not all rubies are heat treated, but the vast majority are. Because of their rarity, gemstones in which colour is naturally occurring are generally more valuable.

Many gemstones are treated or enhanced in some way, such as with heat or safe irradiation, to achieve the beautiful colours or clarity we desire in the sizes we desire. These gems, which are less rare, can also be very valuable. Some jewellers make synthetic coloured gemstones available. Synthetic coloured gemstones have all the optical, physical and chemical properties of naturally occurring gemstones, but they are created in a laboratory rather than occurring in nature.