| Every now and then something becomes very | | | | definitely been giving diamonds great amounts of |
| popular and everyone just have to own it. These | | | | competition and they are quickly replacing them in |
| are usually fly by night trends that quickly go | | | | modern jewelry stores all over the world. |
| away after a year or two. There's one product | | | | Jewelers have been substituting other materials |
| that's been on the road to popularity for nearly a | | | | for diamonds and precious gems for centuries in |
| decade and doesn't show any sign of being a fly | | | | an attempt to find affordable alternatives to |
| by night fad. Yes, I'm talking about cubic zirconia | | | | expensive natural gems. Ancient Egyptians painted |
| jewelry which is quickly replacing old fashioned | | | | wooden gems on the coffins of royalty. In the |
| diamonds. | | | | 18th century, Europeans wore paste jewels made |
| CZ (cubic zirconia) is the crystalline form of | | | | from carefully cut and polished leaded glass. |
| zirconium dioxide, which is another way of saying | | | | Today some fraudulent foreign gem dealers place |
| it's a synthetic man made diamond. Just like a | | | | carefully molded silvered or colored foil paper |
| natural diamond, it has no color. Unless of course | | | | behind set diamonds and gems to give greater |
| you purchase a gemstone, but both diamonds and | | | | brilliance and deeper colors to inferior stones. |
| CZ rank the same on the color scale. In addition, | | | | It took nearly a full 100 years to get to the stage |
| they are both cut precisely using the same laser | | | | in science where natural diamonds could be quickly |
| technology. The last similarity is that they both | | | | replicated into quality man made synthetic |
| have nearly the same visual appeal. | | | | diamonds known as cubic zirconia diamonds. Now |
| Now, you maybe asking yourself, if they are so | | | | that our society has this sort of power, why |
| similar why are the price structures so different? | | | | would you ever settle for the diamond over the |
| Good question! I asked myself the same thing | | | | CZ? I hope you'll choose CZ from now on when it |
| nearly ten years ago and haven't looked back on | | | | comes to wearing fine jewelry! |
| old fashioned diamonds ever since. CZ's have | | | | |