A new obsession. Moissanite.

Gasp.

I received today my first ever moissanites.   Beautiful, amazing material.   Stronger than corundrum and just a notch below diamond on the Mohs scale, Moissanite is bright and fiery and dazzling.   This is as far from cubic zirconia as you can get.  I am unable to tell it apart from real diamond myself, and it has fooled professional jewellers many times.  However, the object, I think, is not to see it as the diamond's poor relation and a sneak that's out to fool you, but to appreciate it for its own merits.  Yes, it is lab created - natural moissanite is very rare indeed: it is found in meteoric dust (see? romantic too - it's silicon from heaven!), but the particles are far too small to be usable in jewellery.  Then along come the clever people at Charles & Colvard and they devise a way to recreate the magic.  But whilst the happy chappies at C&C are probably laughing all the way to the bank (trust me, moissanite ain't cheap), I'm happy too that I'm getting the same bling knowing I'm not helping to fund wars in diamond mining areas of the world.  That, for me, is a good thing.  

I would like to use conflict-free diamonds in future, but for as long as I remain at the stage where I can spend 20 minutes under the bench looking for a wayward stone, it's probably wise not to...

Now I just need to decide how best to show off these babies.