The 6Cs of Sapphires by Brilliyond - C6.Curing

The 4Cs of a diamond is an industry-accepted practise to grade, classify, and describe diamonds. Apart from these four properties, many other factors are considered when determining the quality of sapphires. Incorporating the two major factors which are heavily used in the sapphire trade, Brilliyond introduced the 6Cs of Sapphires for the first time in the industry. The sixth C is the Curing of the Sapphire.

The vast majority of sapphires are cured, healed, or treated to remove deficiencies and increase the qualities. The most common technique of curing is heat treatments. Heating is the process of exposing the gemstone to the same conditions in nature in a very short time. During this process, transformations which take thousands of years could be achieved in a few hours or days. Majority of Sapphires in the market are heat treated.

However, there is a niche demand for unheated/untreated natural sapphires. Technically it is very difficult to 100% conclude that a gemstone is not heated. Thus, trust in the industry plays a great role in supplying natural unheated sapphires.

Heating is purely done to increase the colour of the gemstone. However, it could destroy some impurities inside the stone and make the gemstone more clear and saturated. Any curing technique other than heating is not desirable since they are focusing on hiding or healing the defects found in a gemstone.