Free-Reprint Article Written by: Jodi Goldberg See Terms of Reprint Below.
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Additional Article Information: =============================== 700 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2008-06-04 11:12:00 Written By: Jodi Goldberg Copyright: 2008 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For more free-reprint articles by Jodi Goldberg, please visit: http://www.thePhantomWriters.com/recent/author/jodi-goldberg.html ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= If you use this article on your website or in your ezine, We Want To Know About It. Use the following URL to let us know where you have used this article, and we will include a link to your website on thePhantomWriters.com: http://thephantomwriters.com/notify.php?id=6093&p=load HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/g/colored-gemstones.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Truth About Treatments Part 1: Colored Gemstones Copyright (c) 2008 Jodi Goldberg Fine Jewelry News http://www.finejewelrynews.com Just as wool is dyed, leather is tanned, and wood furniture is stained and sealed, many of the colored gemstones on the market today have been treated to enhance their natural beauty and durability, and to make a wider variety of jewelry-quality gemstones available and affordable. A treated gemstone is still a real gemstone created by the force of nature. Some of the most common treatments used today, such as heating stones to improve their color, have been used for centuries to finish what nature started. Without heat-treating, there would be no bright blue topaz, the intense blue-violet of tanzanite would be a dull brown, and most rubies and sapphires would have a less-than-vivid hue. Your great-grandmothers sapphire brooch may well have been heat-treated way back in the 1800s! Most jewelers do sell treated goods. The practice is ethical as long as treatments are disclosed and their degree of permanence taken into account when pricing the gem. Listed below are the ten treatments that require disclosure by the Federal Trade Commission: * Bleaching:* Chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, diluted acid, or chlorine bleach are used to lighten or remove color or stains. Lotion and skin oils can sometimes stain bleached gems. * Cavity Filling*: Fillers such as glass or plastic are used to seal cavities or pits on the surface of a gem. Cavity filling is sometimes used to add weight, too. Heat from a microscope light, a jewelers torch, store lighting, or even sunlight can cause fillers to leak. * Colorless Impregnation*: Melted wax or plastic is applied to fill the pores of a gem, then allowed to solidify in order to improve the gems color and form a protective seal. Heat can destroy the seal. * Dyeing*: Chemicals or colored oils are used to add color or to deepen it. Dyes can fade in sunlight. * Fracture Filling*: Similar to cavity filling, fracture filling is used to seal narrow breaks in the stone to improve its clarity. Most often colorless glass, plastics, or oils are used as fillers. Heat can cause fillers to leak. * Heat Treatment*: Heat is the oldest gem treatment, and the most common. Today, its become quite a science: depending on the temperature used and the length and rate of heating and cooling, color can be lightened, darkened, deepened, or changed completely. Heat-treating is very durable, but intense heat from a jewelers torch can ruin it. * Irradiation*: Scientists began experimenting with gem radiation as early as the 1900s. The process of irradiation rearranges a stones atoms and electrons in order to change its color. The new color isnt always stable, though. Exposure to heat or even daylight is sometimes enough to fade the color. * Lattice Diffusion *: By combining extremely high temperatures with chemicals, light-colored gems can be infused with a shallow layer of almost any color. Lattice diffusion can also enhance /asterism/the star in star ruby or sapphire. * Sugar and Smoke Treatments*: These simple surface treatments can darken pale opal and enhance its color display. Whether the stone is soaked in a hot sugar solution or roasted over a fire, the result is the same. * Surface Modifications*: Gluing various /backings/, such as foil, fabrics, or even feathers, onto the undersides of stones can enhance coloror give color where there was none. /Coatings/ such as wax or varnish bring out the luster of porous stones. /Painting/ is also used to improve a gems color. A little dab of nail polish on the underside of a gem can give an inexpensive colorless gem the appearance of a ruby. Heres a shortlist of the most common treatments for popular gems. Amethyst: heat treatment Aquamarine: heat treatment Chalcedony: dyeing Citrine: heat treatment Emerald: fracture filling, dyeing Jade: impregnation, bleaching and impregnation, dyeing Lapis Lazuli: dyeing, coating Opal: impregnation (oil, wax, plastic), sugar treatment, smoke treatment Pearl: bleaching Ruby: heat treatment, lattice diffusion, fracture filling, cavity filling Sapphire: heat treatment, lattice diffusion, fracture filling, cavity filling Tanzanite: heat treatment Topaz: heat treatment, irradiation followed by heat treatment Tourmaline: heat treatment, irradiation Turquoise: impregnation (wax, plastic, dyes) Zircon: heat treatment Some treatments, such as heat and irradiation, are undetectable even by gemologists, so proceed with caution: assume a colored gemstone is treated until proven otherwise. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jodi Goldberg is the editor of Fine Jewelry News, http://www.finejewelrynews.com the place to stay in style and in-the-know about fine jewelry. She's been a professional editor for legal, children's, and jewelry publications for the past 20 years. --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/g/colored-gemstones.shtml#get_code ..................................... TERMS OF REPRINT - Publication Rules (Last Updated: May 11, 2006) Our TERMS OF REPRINT are fully enforcable under the terms of: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.2281.ENR: ..................................... *** Digital Reprint Rights *** * If you publish this article in a website/forum/blog, You Must Set All URL's or Mailto Addresses in the body of the article AND in the Author's Resource Box as Hyperlinks (clickable links). * Links must remain in the form that we published them. 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