Sapphires: Strong, Durable …. And Colourful (sort of like the ideal man)

20 August 2013 by Susie Stenmark

No, but seriously, sapphires do have outstanding qualities and are the next most popular gemstone chosen for an engagement ring after diamonds, so you get the connection I’m making here.

But you may not realize that sapphires come in a myriad of colours besides blue. When I first started travelling to Jaipur in India and Bangkok to buy gems for my jewellery, I was astounded at the range of colour offered in sapphires.

You like pink sapphires? Would that be coconut-ice pink? Baby pink? Petal pink? Lipstick pink? Strawberry? Cyclamen? Fuschia? Cerise? Or yellow sapphires – sunshine, honey, buttercup, jonquil, lemon and every shade in between, the happy hue concentrated into luscious carats of edible-looking colour.

My favourite sapphire colour is lavender. It has a watery, barely-tinted loveliness that seems so fragile, belying its hardness and strength. Sapphires are a corundum, the same mineral group as ruby and are second only to diamonds in hardness on the Moh’s Scale, which is important to consider if you’re selecting a gemstone for an engagement or wedding ring that will need to stand up to daily wear.


Clockwise from top: pink sapphires, photography courtesy AJS Gems; STENMARK Sun Ray ring with yellow sapphire centre; blue sapphire, photograpy courtesy AJS Gems; STENMARK Basket-Weave ring with baguette white sapphires; STENMARK Sun Ray ring with pink sapphire centre

Blue sapphires from Kashmir have a mesmerizing deep velvety quality that is so attractive and it is this attribute, along with their rarity (few have come out of Kashmir in the last 100 years), which justifies the price premium these covetable gems command. And the limpid pale to medium cornflower shade of Ceylon sapphire is a fresh and less traditional option than the often preferred darker blue sapphire. If a blue sapphire is too dark (you can’t really see the colour) or too light in colour, it is valued less. Many fine sapphires today come from Burma and Madagascar too, in mouthwatering shades of orange, green, black or even white sapphires.

I’ve used white sapphires in an unexpected way in my Basket-Weave ring in white gold with white opal. Instead of using the sapphire as the central feature of the ring, I’ve contrasted the metallic lustre of white gold with the vivacity of white baguette sapphires in a wide shank that appears to be woven with contrasting textures.

The white sapphires in baguette cut provide a modern and contemporary look and sparkle. The refractive index of sapphires is almost as high as that of diamonds and RI, as it is known, is one of the properties that give a gemstone the ability to refract light and therefore sparkle. And we how important it is to sparkle!