I know most of you are probably hoping to get married soon and I know other than that dream proposal the perfect diamond ring is on that wish list too. So how do you know the ring he bought fits the bill?
(This article might seem sexist and only for the women but men this is for you also so that you don’t break bank on buying a rip off do you?)
Use the fog test.
Put the stone in front of your mouth and fog it like you would a mirror. If it stays fogged for a couple seconds, it’s probably a fake — a real diamond disperses the heat from your breath instantaneously and won’t fog up easily. Even if you wait in between fogging it up and looking at it, it will still clear much faster than a fake.
It can help to use a stone you know is real next to the suspect stone and fog both. You can watch how the real one stays clear while the fake one fogs over; if you breathe on fake diamonds repeatedly, you will see condensation start to build up. With each puff, the fake stone will fog up more and more, while the real one will still be clean and clear.
Look at the stone’s refractivity.
Diamonds sharply bend, or refract, the light that passes through them, resulting in their strikingly brilliant appearance. Stones like glass and quartz sparkle less because they have a lower refractive index. A stone’s brilliance is difficult to alter in any way, even with an expert cut, because it’s an inherent property of the stone. By taking a close look at the stone’s refractivity, you should be able to tell whether it’s the real thing or a fake. Here are a few ways to do it:
The newspaper method: Turn the stone upside down and place it on a piece of newspaper. If you can read print through the stone, or even see distorted black smudges, then it probably isn’t a diamond. A diamond would bend the light so sharply that you wouldn’t be able to see the print. (There are a few exceptions: if its cut is disproportionate, the print can still be visible through a real diamond.)
The dot test: Draw a small dot with a pen on a piece of white paper and place the stone over the center of the dot. Look directly down on it. If your stone is not a diamond, you will see a circular reflection in the stone. You won’t be able to see the dot through a real diamond.
Drop the stone in a glass of water and see if it sinks to the bottom.
Due to its high density, a real diamond will sink. A fake one will float at the top of the surface or in the middle of the glass.
Inspect the diamond under ultraviolet (UV) light.
Many (but not all) diamonds will exhibit blue fluorescence under an ultra violet or black light, so the presence of a medium to strong blue confirms that it is real. The absence of blue, however, does not mean a stone is necessarily fake; some diamonds do not fluoresce under UV light. Very slight green, yellow, or gray fluorescence under ultraviolet light may indicate that the stone is moissanite.
Get an x-ray examination.
Diamonds have a radiolucent molecular structure, which means that they don’t appear in x-ray images. Glass, cubic zirconium and crystals all have slightly radiopaque qualities that make them show up clearly on an x-ray.
