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What is the Misfit Gem Labs?
The world of diamonds and gems can often be confusing and difficult to navigate. We’re here to help! The Misfit Gem Lab is a series with new episodes monthly(ish) where we share our gemmological knowledge in hopes to create educational resources for you to be able to help your clients better!
Have a question? Get in touch!
Ep. 5: The Joy of Fancy Color Diamonds
Not unlike your favorite superhero, Fancy Color
Diamonds attribute their unique qualities to a wide range of influences.
These strange and mysterious colors are often the result of imperfections in genetic makeup, exposure to radiation or
the presence of unexpected chemicals. These diamonds are some of the rarest and most special kinds of Misfits. Episode
Five of the Misfit Gem Labs takes a look at some of the origin stories of these superb diamonds.
Coming to you straight from your 27-inch 200-lb color TV, join famous painter, Bob – er, Rob Boss – on a happy little journey into the world of Fancy Color Diamonds. Using different “paints,” Boss creates the colors that naturally form in diamonds, mirroring how Mama Earth paints fancy color diamonds in nature. Starting with salt and pepper diamonds, Boss paints using a medley of inclusions: clouds, feathers, and other minerals and crystals. With enough black “pepper” inclusions – usually minerals from the amphibole or pyroxene groups – we get fancy black diamonds; while an abundance of microscopic clouds makes fancy white diamonds.
Just like the mysterious elements that forge superpowers, the presence of different chemicals is what creates different colors: boron makes some diamonds blue; hydrogen and boron together can cause purple ; while either hydrogen or boron can also produce fancy grey. Yellow is the most common diamond color, caused by the presence of nitrogen, which also makes browns and champagnes. The saturation of a specific color often depends on how much of a certain chemical has interacted with the diamond during its formation. An abundance of nitrogen can make orange. The other “paint” we find that influences a diamond’s color is the presence of impurities during its growth. Exposure to natural radiation deep within the earth, together with immense pressure, can create fancy green diamonds, while imperfections in the crystal lattice of a diamond will make pink or red. While you can’t exactly “paint” your own fancy color diamond, you can shop our stunning collection here.
Coming to you straight from your 27-inch 200-lb color TV, join famous painter, Bob – er, Rob Boss – on a happy little journey into the world of Fancy Color Diamonds. Using different “paints,” Boss creates the colors that naturally form in diamonds, mirroring how Mama Earth paints fancy color diamonds in nature. Starting with salt and pepper diamonds, Boss paints using a medley of inclusions: clouds, feathers, and other minerals and crystals. With enough black “pepper” inclusions – usually minerals from the amphibole or pyroxene groups – we get fancy black diamonds; while an abundance of microscopic clouds makes fancy white diamonds.
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Just like the mysterious elements that forge superpowers, the presence of different chemicals is what creates different colors: boron makes some diamonds blue; hydrogen and boron together can cause purple ; while either hydrogen or boron can also produce fancy grey. Yellow is the most common diamond color, caused by the presence of nitrogen, which also makes browns and champagnes. The saturation of a specific color often depends on how much of a certain chemical has interacted with the diamond during its formation. An abundance of nitrogen can make orange. The other “paint” we find that influences a diamond’s color is the presence of impurities during its growth. Exposure to natural radiation deep within the earth, together with immense pressure, can create fancy green diamonds, while imperfections in the crystal lattice of a diamond will make pink or red. While you can’t exactly “paint” your own fancy color diamond, you can shop our stunning collection here.
Ep. 4 Pt. 2: Meet Josh
You will recognize Josh as the token gemologist from previous Misfit Gem Labs episodes. Josh is in fact a real life gemologist, and he's here to elaborate on Part 1 of our last episode on heat treatment in sapphires - the reasons behind heat treatment, some of the history of these treatment methods and the different techniques used to heat sapphires.
Read the full transcript here.
Ep. 4 Pt. 1: Sapphires - Heat Treatment and the Color Spectrum
In this episode, our newest cast of characters isn’t too happy with how they’re being treated. Heat-treated, that is. This time around, a heated green sapphire takes the role as the gemmologist, educating a friendly unheated silky pink sapphire on the ins-and-outs of heat treatment. Heating can serve to enhance or remove particular colors, eliminate or minimize inclusions, or create a more uniform coloring. Heat treatment has been used for centuries, with some open flame techniques still being used to this day. Sapphire miners blow air on an open flame to manipulate the amount of oxygen that the sapphires inside the crucible are exposed to. Similarly, modern techniques use large furnaces in controlled environments. Heating can also happen naturally, occurring beneath the earth’s crust, and some of these naturally heated sapphires still get identified as heat-treated by gem labs. Heating is neither good nor bad, and is so accepted in the industry that the majority of sapphires are heat-treated. However, we have a large selection of unheated sapphires, as well as heated ones.
This episode’s main characters, Heated Green and Silky Pink, go on to explain how different elements cause different colors – from titanium and iron in blues, iron in yellows and greens, to vanadium in violets. The element chromium, which happens to make emeralds and some other gemstones green, is actually what makes rubies (another variety of corundum, a.k.a. sapphires) red, and it’s a mixture of chromium, iron and titanium that causes some sapphires to change color under warm or cool light.
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This episode’s main characters, Heated Green and Silky Pink, go on to explain how different elements cause different colors – from titanium and iron in blues, iron in yellows and greens, to vanadium in violets. The element chromium, which happens to make emeralds and some other gemstones green, is actually what makes rubies (another variety of corundum, a.k.a. sapphires) red, and it’s a mixture of chromium, iron and titanium that causes some sapphires to change color under warm or cool light.
Ep. 3: Montana Sapphires
Geographic origin plays a big part in the appearance of gemstones, and sapphires are no exception! First discovered in the 1800s, the majority of Montana Sapphires were deemed too imperfect to be used in fine jewelry and were used primarily by the American watch industry. Did someone say “imperfections”? Imperfection is our middle name! (Literally, everyone on staff ... it's in our contracts.) It wasn’t until recently that people began to embrace the natural, wild beauty of these stones. Sapphires from Montana are known for two things: their color—ranging from striking and bold, to soft, unheated pastels; and their inclusions—often displaying hexagonal color-zoning, parti coloring, or silky sheen caused by rutile, a mineral that gets trapped inside sapphires during the growth process. Sapphires are often heated to enhance their color and dissolve rutile, but unheated stones preserve their natural appearance and, when rutile appears in high concentration, a silky sheen. Although the majority of sapphires mined in Montana end up heated and under one carat, Misfit Diamonds has one of the largest collections of unheated Montana sapphires over 1.00ct. Browse our Montana sapphires!
Ep. 2: Misfit Sapphires
Much like our weird and wonderful selection of diamonds, our sapphires will have you doing a double-take. “I’ve heard of blue sapphires,” you say. “Heck, I’ve even heard of pink and green, but what in Earth’s Holy Spectrum of Light are all these colors about?! Some stones are even two colors! Please explain, Mr. Gem Lab.” Well, not only can sapphires come in any color, depending on the minerals and gasses that are contained within the stone, sapphires can also display a range of phenomena related to light and color. When light travels into a sapphire, it splits into two rays, resulting in something called dichroism, meaning the stone will display two different colors when viewed at different angles (while all sapphires are dichroic, diamonds are not - more on that another time!). Dichroism isn’t the only time we’re seeing double in sapphires.
Color-zoning is when saturation varies during crystal growth, causing areas of light and dark color within a single crystal, usually showing up as stripes and sometimes in a hexagonal pattern (fun fact: sapphire crystals are hexagonal!). Sapphires with two or more distinct colors are known as parti-colored. Inclusions inside sapphires can result in opalescence or a silky sheen, sometimes even resulting in a reflective star, called asterism, in star sapphires. Color change in sapphires is due to trace chemicals (i.e. vanadium), resulting in different outputs from different wavelengths of light. Now you’re smarter! Go, impress your friends.
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Color-zoning is when saturation varies during crystal growth, causing areas of light and dark color within a single crystal, usually showing up as stripes and sometimes in a hexagonal pattern (fun fact: sapphire crystals are hexagonal!). Sapphires with two or more distinct colors are known as parti-colored. Inclusions inside sapphires can result in opalescence or a silky sheen, sometimes even resulting in a reflective star, called asterism, in star sapphires. Color change in sapphires is due to trace chemicals (i.e. vanadium), resulting in different outputs from different wavelengths of light. Now you’re smarter! Go, impress your friends.
Ep. 1: What Makes a Misfit?
What exactly is a Misfit Diamond? It won’t take you long browsing our online catalog to notice that we carry a lot of unusual looking diamonds, unfamiliar colors and shapes, often with whole worlds trapped inside. These oddballs tell stories that are unlike any other, and stand out from crowd, allowing for some remarkable jewelry creations. A diamond’s misfit-ness is highlighted by its inclusions. You know them as "those little wispy things" or "those peppery bits," but more formally, some examples of diamond inclusions are: feathers, internal fractures that have a feathery appearance; clouds, groups of microscopic minerals; or other minerals and crystals - at times even diamond crystals. Commonly, the black spots in diamonds have been thought to be carbon; however, we're setting the record straight! The black spots are rarely carbon, but are usually other black minerals usually pertaining to the amphibole or pyroxene groups (which are really just fancy words for other rocks). Find your unique Misfit.
A Circadian Chronicle of Corundum
(with Carlo Constantino)
If you’ve ever wondered what it looks like here at Misfit Diamonds when you order a diamond or a sapphire, A Circadian Chronicle of Corundum (with Carlo Constantino) is a glimpse into the journey from order to delivery. Okay sure, it might not always be via vintage-typewriter-transcribed-paper-airplane letter, but when a jeweler orders a stone through our online store or by email, that stone is automatically removed from our online inventory and pulled manually by our staff. If they are looking for something that isn’t on our webstore, they can reach out and make a request based on their specific needs, after which our team will select any available options and correspond accordingly. Once the client has selected their stone(s), we ship it out and wait to see their creation on social media!
Stones in this short: Montana Sapphires, Australian Sapphires, Sri Lankan Sapphires
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