Sapphire

Probably one of the most versatile and beautiful stones—sapphire is a right royal choice when it comes to gems. Sapphire belongs to the gem family corundum the same as its fiery red sibling the ruby. But the similarities end here. While you would never imagine rubies to be anything but red, sapphires exist in a mind boggling array of colors enough to entice the staunchest of ruby-lovers. While the deep blue sapphire beads is undoubted king of them all this gem is regularly seen in shades of white, green, yellow, orange, pink, and purple. There is also a lovely, albeit rare, pinkish orange stone known as ‘padparadscha’ Sinhalese for ‘lotus flower’ and a sapphire that exhibits different colors in different light known as color change sapphire. Sapphires are fashioned into beads, cabochons, carvings, drops, rose cut stones, briolettes, and slices. Beads are further available in a multitude of shapes and sizes ranging from roundels, smooth rounds, crescent shaped, rose cut, rectangular, carved, pentagon shaped, pear shaped, oval, marquise, briolette, leaf and flower shaped, and teardrop shaped. Apart from beads slices, and cut stones with a variety of finishes such as striated, carved, tumbled, smooth or faceted are also available.