In recent years, the popularity of diamond engagement rings has suffered a sharp decline. The reasons for this are many, but most of them are tied to increased awareness of the public-relations nightmare that diamond firms are going through due to several revelations into the nature of the diamond-mining industry, and various human-rights violations committed in the process of mining diamonds.
In addition to this, there has been widespread consumer dissatisfaction with the business practices of large diamond cartels such as the DeBeers Group, which has tightly restricted the supply of diamonds in order to artificially drive up prices. As a result of such behaviour, purchasers of engagement rings – who comprise a rather significant portion of the retail buyers’ market – have decided to switch their habits and embrace alternate products, such as moissanite engagement rings, rather than remain at the whims of unethical diamond consortiums that engage in questionable business practices.
The initial shift was toward semi-precious jewels such as rubies, which are of a vivid red shade; or sapphires and amethysts, jewels which are a clear blue and a regal purple respectively; however, the fact remains that many women seem to prefer the aesthetics of a diamond, possibly because the diamond’s brilliant blue-white sparkle is rather tone-neutral, and can be paired with any outfit without clashing. As a result, male suitors everywhere started trying to find alternatives to diamond engagement and wedding rings that still retained the visual quality of a diamond, which led to the creation of the moissanite jewelry market.
Moissanite is a gemstone that is very similar to diamonds. It is made of silicon carbide, and is much more visually similar to diamonds than the nearest mostpopular diamond simulant, cubic zirconium. Interestingly, moissanite is not only a “gemstone in its own right” but its natural form is also incredibly rare – much rarer than diamonds. Whereas natural diamonds can be found underground in several areas (notably in Canada and Africa), moissanite has seldom been found in nature – and when it has, its origins are usually extra-planetary. Seriously. One of the few places moissanite can be found are on meteorite remains.
Given all these facts – its startlingly diamond-like visual appearance and its extreme rarity – it is no wonder that young men have been turning to moissanite and diamoneller rings instead of the natural diamond variety. In addition to this, of course, there is the price factor – the relatively cheap moissanite engagement ring (especially when compared to the extremely high price of diamonds, which is really due more to marketing factors than to any innate value of the diamond itself) is quite a bargain.