Posted by Mia on December 28, 2011, 4:01 am, in reply to "Paste vs real"
Thank you, Henri, for the wonderful story. The necklace sounds beautiful. Your story raised an awfully lot of questions in my mind.
I didn't really understand if the rose cut stones were foiled because you mentioned "with refraction from the holder". The rose cut stones are usually more "watery" in appearence and you can see through them because their form is dome shaped and they lack the pavilion.
If the diamonds were "industrial made diamonds" it could mean that they are synthetic diamonds (HPHT high pressure high temperature). Then they have of course exactly the same optical and other properties as natural diamonds. So same stuff, though man-made, - same impression.
Isn't it so that usually the term paste refers to the glass simulants of diamond? There are many varieties, pāte-de-verre, rhinestones, Swarovski crystals, strass. Some of these have foiling under the stone which makes them more light reflective. And these are often cut with 8/8 cut or the faceting is not done as properly and sharply as in diamonds and that reveales them from the real thing in the first place.
Paste stones can be wonderful as new, but tend to fade when the foiling wears out. Also small paste stones are not usually set but glued in the piece of jewellery - so it can be detected by the missing prongs or that the prongs don't actually touch the stone at all.
So about your question: sometimes it means a lot to a woman just to know what stuff her jewelry is made of. For most of us it is lovely to know that the stones are real. It disturbs us if the diamond has SI inclusions or if the colour is an H instead of the perfect D. For some it measures the amount of love when one's own engagement ring has a D/Flawless diamond.
So all in all, I could probably wear synthetic diamonds and in some cases paste. So a synthetic engagement ring for me, yes please, and some antique paste jewellery for parties, thank you.
on December 28, 2011, 4:01 am, in reply to "
