Frequently Asked Questions: Materials for Manufacturing, Other Stones

Q: Do you sell non-cubic zirconia stones?

Q: What are birthstones? Can you get them or make them for me?

Q: Do you sell colored cubic zirconia stones? What colors are available? Cost and shipping details?

Q: Can I get a colored cubic zirconia stone put into my jewelry from CubicZirconia.com?

Q: Can I get a colored natural gemstone put into my jewelry from CubicZirconia.com?

Q: What shapes and sizes of colored natural gemstones can you get me?

Q: What colors of sapphires are available?

Q: What colors of alexandrite are available?

Q: What colors of citrine are available?

Q: What colors of morganite are available?

Q: What colors of tanzanite are available?

Q: What colors of topaz are available?

Q: What colors of tourmaline are available?

Q: Do you carry natural diamond center stones?

Q: I know you sell cubic zirconia jewelry, but can you / will you make my ring with a big diamond?

Q: What about natural melee/accent diamonds? Can I get one of your rings with a cubic zirconia center stone and real natural diamonds for the melee/accent stones?

Q: Can you buy my center stone diamond or give me credit for my diamond towards my purchase with CubicZirconia.com?

Q: What is the Moh’s Scale of mineral hardness? Where does cubic zirconia rank?

Q: What is the difference between natural and synthetic gemstones?

Q: Does that mean you will never ever sell jewelry with real diamonds?

A: We recognize the beauty of making jewelry with traditional clear/white diamonds or diamond simulants such as our 5A cubic zirconia matched with a bit of color. When we receive requests for colored stones to be added to our jewelry, we are happy to accommodate our customers with both real/genuine colored gemstones and/or artificial/man-made colored stones. For artificial colored stone options, see FAQ questions “Do you sell colored cubic zirconia stones? What colors are available? Cost and shipping details?” and “Can I get a colored cubic zirconia stone put into my jewelry from CubicZirconia.com?”. For genuine colored gemstone options, see FAQ question “Can I get a colored natural gemstone put into my jewelry from CubicZirconia.com?”.  

Please note that we do not stock in inventory nor sell “loose” stones other than cubic zirconia. This means you cannot buy from CubicZirconia.com precious stones, semi-precious stones, lab-created stones, natural gemstones, or man-made stones (other than cubic zirconia) as a “loose” stone. At this time we only provide these stones to you for setting in one of our catalog or custom jewelry pieces.

A: Birthstones are gemstones that are traditionally associated with one of the twelve months of the year and the people who were born during that month. Both genuine gemstones and simulated/artificial birthstone colors are available for use in jewelry. And yes, we make colored artificial cubic zirconia birthstone simulants for each of the most common faceted birthstone gemstones. We can get you genuine birthstone colored gemstones, too. 

For additional details, please see more specific answers to FAQ questions “Do you sell colored cubic zirconia stones? What colors are available? Cost and shipping details?andCan I get a colored natural gemstone put into my jewelry from CubicZirconia.com?.

A:  Cubic zirconia is an extremely viable colored gemstone and birthstone simulant, in addition to being the most popular clear natural diamond substitute in the world over the last few decades. 

Yes, our stones team does regularly make and sell over 20 different colors of colored cubic zirconia stones including many birthstone simulants. However, available colors are practically unlimited although most customers usually stay within the color ranges of popular birthstones and real colored gems such as cubic zirconia stones that mimic the colors of genuine rubies, garnets, sapphires, amethysts, emeralds etc. 

See below for our most common and most popular colored cubic zirconia stones (The color on your screen may not reflect actual gemstone color due to variations in monitors).

Amethyst simulant CZ

Apple CZ

Aqua CZ 

 Black CZ

Blue Tanzanite CZ

Brown CZ  

Canary CZ 

Champagne CZ 

Citrine CZ  

Emerald simulant CZ 

Garnet simulant CZ  

Green CZ 

Lavender CZ  

Olive CZ  

Orange CZ  

Peridot simulant CZ 

Pink CZ  

Purple CZ  

Red CZ 

Rhodolite simulant CZ 

#3 Ruby simulant CZ  

#5 Ruby simulant CZ  

#7 Ruby simulant CZ 

#8 Ruby simulant CZ  

Sapphire simulant CZ  

Tanzanite simulant CZ 

Teal CZ 

Tourmaline simulant CZ  

Turquoise CZ  

Violet CZ 

Yellow CZ  

 

We can make and sell you colored stones in pretty much any color you want and any size too. However, traditionally the demand for all of the various colors combined is barely the same as the demand for white/clear stones we keep in stock ready to ship within 48 hours of order. Therefore, we do not usually stock as many shape and size combinations of colored cubic zirconia stones the way we do white/clear ones. So please understand that it will take a bit more time than white/clear stones and cost more too. Click this blog post to get more details on our colored cubic zirconia stone options:  Colored cubic zirconia options- Center stones, Melee/Accents (Single or Bulk).

All of these colored cubic zirconia stones options are also available to purchase for setting in an eligible jewelry piece purchased from CubicZirconia.com. Click the link provided for details on our colored cubic zirconia stone upgrade product.

A:   Yes, no problem: we have colored cubic zirconia stones of many shapes and colors and can set them into your jewelry for you. We provide this service because it's among the best ways to really personalize jewelry and make it extra special! A dash of color is an especially popular choice for larger stones in our 2-stone, 3-stone, 5-stone, and cocktail-bling style rings, and for smaller stones in our peekaboo hidden-stone-enhanced rings.

All of the colored cubic zirconia stones options mentioned in the FAQ question “Do you sell colored cubic zirconia stones? What colors are available? Cost and shipping details?are also available to purchase for setting in an eligible jewelry piece purchased from CubicZirconia.com. Click the link provided for details on our colored cubic zirconia stone upgrade product. Not all products are eligible, contact for details. We can only do colored cubic zirconia stone upgrades at these prices on jewelry pieces that are purchased through CubicZirconia.com. If purchasing the jewelry to be upgraded with colored cubic zirconia now, please add 5-10 days to the "Manufacturing Time" listed on the product details page of the product you're purchasing to estimate the new manufacturing time for your order.

A: Yes, we have access to a wide variety of natural gemstones in various qualities, colors and shapes. We can source, sell and set the following genuine colored gemstones into jewelry purchased from CubicZirconia.com: alexandrite (varied colors), aquamarine, amethyst, citrine (varied colors), emerald, garnet, hematite, iolite, jade, morganite (pink or champagne), onyx, opal, pearl, peridot, quartz, rhodolite, ruby (varied colors), sapphire (varied colors), spinel, tanzanite (light blue or dark blue), topaz (varied colors), tourmaline (pink or green), or turquoise. Not all products are eligible, contact for details and pricing. 

We provide this service because it's among the best ways to really personalize jewelry and make it extra special!  A dash of color is an especially popular choice for larger stones in our 2-stone, 3-stone, 5-stone, and cocktail-bling style rings, and for smaller stones in our peekaboo hidden-stone-enhanced rings. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural gemstones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup-- in most cases cheaper than you could get on your own, or at a jeweler that specializes in such stones. 

Please note that we can only do colored natural gemstone upgrades at these prices on jewelry pieces that are purchased through CubicZirconia.com. If purchasing the jewelry to be upgraded with colored natural gemstones now, please add 14-18 days to the "Manufacturing Time" listed on the product details page of the product you're purchasing to estimate the new manufacturing time for your order. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine gemstone, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A: Pretty much anything that fits one of our catalog jewelry pieces. 

A: We have access to a wide variety of colors of genuine sapphires, such as Deep Blue, Light Blue, Star Sapphire, Deep Pink, Light Pink, Deep Green, Light Green, Champagne, Deep Yellow, Light Yellow, Clear/White, Deep Purple, Light Purple, Black, Orange, and Padparadscha to name a few. These include the various qualities, hues and shades in between. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural sapphires. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine sapphire, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A:  We have access to genuine color-changing alexandrite in the following colors: purple alexandrite, green alexandrite, and red alexandrite (each with varying degrees of color-change properties). These include the various qualities, hues and shades in between. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural alexandrite stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine alexandrite, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A: We have access to genuine citrine in the following colors: yellow citrine, orange citrine, brown citrine, and red citrine. These include the various qualities, hues and shades in between. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural citrine stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine citrine, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A:  We have access to genuine morganite in two colors: pink morganite and champagne-colored morganite. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural morganite stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine morganite, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A:  We have access to genuine tanzanite in two colors: light blue tanzanite and dark blue tanzanite. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural tanzanite stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine tanzanite, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A: We have access to genuine topaz in the following colors: dark blue topaz, light blue topaz, London topaz, pink topaz, orange topaz, yellow topaz, red topaz, and a few others. These include the various qualities, hues and shades in between. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural topaz stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine topaz, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A:  We have access to genuine tourmaline in two colors: pink tourmaline and green tourmaline. Understand, however, that we do not mine natural tourmaline stones. We buy them with our jewelry credentials and sell them at a small markup. If you want to have your CubicZirconia.com jewelry piece set with a particular colored genuine tourmaline, just email us on the website or call us at U.S. toll-free 1-888-355-2484 prior to purchase and we’ll provide direct pricing and have it arranged for you.

A: No, we do not carry mined diamonds of any kind, natural or other.  We could, but we choose not to do that.  We are fundamentally against the horrible human and environmental consequences that come from the mining and sale of genuine diamonds and genuine diamond jewelry. That means we will not make one of our rings for you and set it with a diamond center stone. 

A: That is an emphatic “NO”. We do not set our jewelry with diamonds as the primary stone or stones. We are fundamentally against the horrible human and environmental consequences that come from the mining and sale of genuine diamonds and genuine diamond jewelry. That means we will not make one of our rings for you and set it with a large diamond. 

Smaller diamonds, however, are plentiful and cheap and not fraught with the cost of human misery. Frankly, we really don’t understand why anyone would want diamonds instead of cubic zirconia...but to help a customer get exactly what they want, we have done it. See  FAQ question What about natural melee/accent diamonds? Can I get one of your rings with a cubic zirconia center stone and real natural diamonds for the melee/accent stones?” for full details.

A: We do not carry natural melee or accent diamonds in inventory. However, customers hoping/expecting to replace an inexpensive but flawless and colorless 5A CubicZirconia.com CZ center stone with a diamond at some point in the future sometimes ask us if it is possible for us to make our catalog jewelry or custom jewelry with only the largest stone being cubic zirconia while natural diamond accent stones (also known as ‘side stones' or 'melee stones’) are used in the remainder of the piece. Some customers see their cubic zirconia center stone as a “placeholder” they hope one day to replace with a genuine diamond. Such is the power of the diamond cartel’s brainwashing...but we digress. The answer to your question is “yes”, we can supply a combination of a CZ center stone and diamond melee accents. This is possible if you let us know your desire before or during purchase. 

With diamond melee/accent stones, you buy the ring from us and we simply facilitate the your purchase of those smaller melee/accent diamonds from a wholesale diamond seller through our jeweler’s credentials. We will neither warrant those diamond stones nor provide any opportunity for refund (all melee/accent diamond sales are final). In fact, in these instances we don’t even seek to make a profit but allow the customer to buy diamond melee accent stones at our cost as a jeweler buying from a jeweler. There will be no markup whatsoever, because we are simply not interested in making a profit from diamonds. You buy the ring from us and the diamonds through us from the diamond seller. You will have the opportunity to choose the clarity and color of the melee diamond stones, as the price of these variations will change based on your final choice.

To our knowledge, there is no other jeweler in the world who would allow you to buy natural diamonds at cost. Why would they? It's too easy to have people pay 3-10x the wholesale cost for a retail markup. We do this because we believe wholly in the alternative diamond market more so than the natural diamond market. Thanks for giving us a chance to earn your business. See our blog post Ring with Cubic Zirconia center stone plus real diamond accent/melee stones for full details. 

A: Journalists have known for decades what anyone who tries to do so finds out pretty quickly: it’s really hard to sell a diamond for anywhere close to what you paid for it. If you paid 10,000 bucks for a diamond, chances are that the jeweler bought it for US$5,000 or less to resell to you. And if you wanted to sell it today, the absolute most you could hope for might be US$4000. That’s just one of the reasons we don’t have any love for the diamond industry. And the price of diamonds isn’t going up, but down. But if you need cash and fast...what’s to do?

What if you could keep your jewelry, just sell the diamond for fast cash at a fair price, have it replaced with our 5A/AAAAA cubic zirconia...and no one knew the difference? We understand why people were asking us for years if we could help them unload an unwanted diamond, or due to death, debt or divorce, help them with their need to part with a cherished piece of jewelry in exchange for cash. For most of our company’s history, however-- as a diamond alternative retail jeweler-- we didn’t have a way to help these customers. Now we do. 

It’s called the CubicZirconia.com “diamond downgrade” program, where our relationship diamond buyer will offer you cash for your diamond, and we can set in your jewelry piece a flawless 5A cubic zirconia replacement stone that’s so perfect no one will know the difference! Learn more about it here: Cash For Your Diamond + Perfect CZ Replica Jewelry.

A: The Moh's Scale of Hardness ranks minerals, gemstones, metals and other materials based on what material scratches what other materials, and what materials are scratched by it in return. Basically, all materials in the world are assigned a number on the Moh’s scale. A material can be scratched by anything ranked above it (with a higher Moh’s number) and in turn can scratch anything ranked below it (with a lower Moh’s number) on the scale. The scale goes from one (1.0) to ten (10.0). At the lower end of the spectrum, materials are fragile and easily scratched. For example, talc (the soft material in baby powder) has a rank of 1.0. At the higher end of the spectrum, materials are the most-durable and hardest-to-scratch. A diamond has a rank of 10.0. Diamond isn't the only material that does fine for long-lasting jewelry, though.

Fine jewelers typically recommend jewelry to be worn every day should be made of materials with no less than a Moh's scale rank of 7.0. Our 5A (AAAAA) cubic zirconia stones rate an 8.5 on the Moh's scale of mineral hardness, just below ruby (9.0) or sapphire (9.0), and are harder than aquamarine, morganite and emerald (each 7.5-8); harder than amethyst, citrine, garnet, quartz, and tourmaline (each 7-7.5); and harder than peridot, tanzanite, opal or jade (each 6-7). Indeed, our 5A diamond-quality cubic zirconia stones are harder than most other colored birthstones! Cool, huh? (Source: Wikipedia).

In the following blog post, we talk a bit more in-depth about the Moh's scale and cover other related topics such as “what gemstones in jewelry is good for daily wear?”, "how should I store my jewelry to prevent scratches?", "how does platinum/palladium/gold/silver rank on the Moh's scale?" and more: Moh's scale of Hardness, and How to Protect your Jewelry from unwanted Scratches.

A: Gemstones are formed by the crystallization of minerals, caused primarily by heat and pressure. Natural gemstones are formed when the heat and pressure are applied over time by the natural forces of the earth. A natural diamond mined from the earth is a natural gemstone. Synthetic (man-made) gemstones are formed when heat and pressure is applied to minerals over an often accelerated time period in a laboratory. 

A lab-grown or lab-created diamond is an example of a synthetic gemstone. The cubic zirconia stones we make and sell are another example. Synthetic gemstones are by no means "fake" gemstones; rather, they are man-made stones designed to have the same/similar chemical and physical properties, and the same crystal structure as natural gemstones. In addition, natural gemstones often have inclusions, or imperfections in the stone, while synthetic gemstones are typically manufactured perfect and free from inclusions. For an in-depth explanation of our process for synthesizing cubic zirconia stones used in our CZ jewelry, check out the answer to the question “How is cubic zirconia made?.

A: When it comes to small accent ‘melee’ stones, we can and will help someone out; see our answer to FAQ question Q: What about natural melee/accent diamonds? Can I get one of your rings with a cubic zirconia center stone and real natural diamonds for the melee/accent stones?

As far as large stones, if a customer specifically asks us to custom make a jewelry piece for them and set it with real diamonds, we’ll be happy to do so for the small melee stones as per the FAQ answer linked to above.

However, for large center stones...No, we do not carry or work with large mined diamonds of any kind-- natural or other.  We could, but we choose not to do that because of the very real difficulty to procure such diamonds from “moral and ethical sources”. As far as we can tell, there are no easily verifiable ways to discern that such natural diamond stones may very well not have been polished with blood. We are fundamentally against the horrible human and environmental consequences that come from the mining and sale of genuine diamonds and genuine diamond jewelry. That means we will not make one of our rings for you and set it with a diamond center stone.

But this is a judgment-free zone, okay? If you want that, just please ask another jeweler. If you ask us, we will take the chance to share some of what we know about the advantages of getting the same custom designed ring but having it set with 5A cubic zirconia instead-- such as huge savings, more huge savings and even more huge savings!

(You see, we’re not all about profits.)