this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
1577 points (98.9% liked)
Memes
45728 readers
1016 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Moissanite is chemically different to diamond (SiC vs C), has a different crystal structure, and is less hard. You can also get actual lab-grown diamond, but they are quite expensive. But you probabaly won't be able to tell the difference anyway.
Usually you can tell the difference. Lab grown diamond is pure while rock grown diamond is imperfect.
But you have to look at it under a magnifying glass to tell, and know what you’re looking for.
But also, who cares that it's less hard? I'm not using it for a drill bit, it's a cosmetic piece. Literally it's only function is visual. And moissanite is superior. All the visual markers that are used for beauty in a diamond it surpasses. And some quick googling I did to confirm that also showed me that diamond is only barely harder ("With a hardness of 9.25, moissanite is the second-hardest material used a gemstone." a diamond is a 10.) and it turns out, less likely to break in some cases. "Moissanite doesn't have a cleavage plane, while diamond does. (This is an internal plane along which a diamond crystal can easily split)" So if you hit a diamond in the wrong spot, it can still crack. Moissanite does not have a weak spot.
source
It's very important to me that my gemstone only has carbon. If it has silicon I'm going to get very upset. Silicon interferes with your inner flow and can have harmful ions.
It’s like 93% as hard but has better better optical properties which is what matters.