Tagged “treatments”
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Porosity, and what stone takes in
Why one stone accepts dye and another refuses it comes down to connected pore space — the property behind most treatments and most staining.
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Type A, B and C jadeite
The letters are a treatment classification, not a quality grade. What each one means, what it applies to, and why a listing's Grade A is neither.
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Testing a stone at home
The scratch test, the water test, the loupe and the kitchen scale — what each one actually establishes, and the much longer list of what none of them can.
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How imitation stone is made
Dyeing, waxing, polymer impregnation, reconstitution, glass and resin — each is a different process, and each leaves a different trace behind.
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What a gemmologist actually does
The instruments that identify a stone, what each one measures, and why an opaque polished tool is a harder case than a faceted gem.
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Heat, irradiation, and coatings
Dyeing is the treatment everyone knows about. Heating, irradiation and surface coating are equally common, and each leaves a different kind of trace.
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Amethyst, citrine, and heat treatment
Amethyst's purple is a lattice defect, not a pigment — which is why heat converts it to yellow, and why most commercial citrine started out purple.
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Synthetic, imitation, simulant, composite
Four words that get used interchangeably and mean four different things. A synthetic stone is the real mineral; an imitation contains none of it.
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Where colour in stone comes from
Colour in a mineral comes from trace metals, lattice defects, inclusions or structure — which is why colour is the least reliable way to identify a stone.