GEMSTONE TREATMENTS & ENHANCEMENTS
While all the gemstones used in ICONIC jewelry designs are formed naturally in the earth’s crust, some of these have undergone treatments to improve their appearance. Jewelry professionals also use gemstone treatments to improve durability, color, and clarity.
Standard gemstone enhancements include heat treatment, fracture filling, irradiation, waxing, dyeing, bleaching, diffusion treatment, polishing, and cutting with the help of gem cutters.
Common Gemstone Enhancements
Dyeing
Dyeing is a treatment technique that involves applying a coloring agent to the surface of a gemstone. The surface of the gem material must be porous or fractured for the dye to permeate it. Chalcedony is one of the many gems often treated using this method. Lower-grade lapis lazuli, with lots of white calcite, is another gem dyed to achieve its desired royal or pale blue color.
Bleaching
Bleaching is one of many gem treatments that use chemicals or other methods (such as strong light elements) to lighten a gemstone’s color, improve its clarity, or fade dark spots. Jade and pearls are among the many gems often bleached to enhance their appearance. What is interesting about this treatment, though, is that it is virtually undetectable, even to a trained eye. So, gem crystals that have been bleached often appear to have been found or mined that way, even though this is not actually the case.
Coating
Coating a gem involves the application of lacquer or some other type of coloring agent to its surface, which is done to improve its coloration and appearance.
Filling
Fractures occur naturally in gemstones, but surface-reaching fractures can often lower the value of a gem. Thus, fracture filling is another of the many gemstone treatments used to improve the appearance and overall quality of gem materials. The filling materials used in this type of treatment include leaded glass, plastic, resin, wax, and oil. By filling the cavities in the gem’s surface with one of these materials, the visibility of the imperfections is reduced. In some cases, fracture filling also adds a slight amount of weight to the gemstone. In others, fracture filling is used for clarity enhancement. For example, oil is used to fill fissures in emeralds to improve their apparent clarity (a treated emerald is sometimes called an “oiled” emerald). Fancy color diamonds and rubies are also often treated for surface-reaching fractures using this gemstone enhancement technique.
Heat Treatment
The most common method used for gemstone color and clarity enhancement is heat treatment. Heat treatment involves using high temperatures to lighten, darken, or even change the natural color of a gemstone to improve its overall appearance. These color changes are permanent, and the treatment is often performed on gemstones such as aquamarine, topaz, ruby, and sapphire. Heat treatment can also sometimes improve the clarity of a gemstone. For example, heating aquamarine can eliminate the yellow component or green color, resulting in a bluer gem. In the same way, using heat treatment on a blue sapphire will result in a deep blue color while also removing some of the minute inclusions (imperfections) that are naturally present in this particular gemstone.
Diffusion
Diffusion treatment is used to alter or accentuate the appearance of pale or colorless gems. The process usually involves applying chemicals to the surface of such stones in combination with heat treatment. The combination of these two gemstone enhancement methods allows the chemicals on the surface to travel into the crystal structure of the gemstone, introducing a color that was previously not there. Ruby and sapphire are commonly treated with diffusion but bear in mind that while the value of the treated stones is usually much less than the naturally colorful ones, this doesn’t make them any less genuine. Diffusion treatment may also sometimes only penetrate the outermost surface of gem materials. In this case, the original color may be exposed if the gemstone is chipped or scratched.
Irradiation
Irradiation is a gem treatment technique that exposes a gemstone to artificial radiation for color enhancement purposes. Irradiation is sometimes followed by heat treatment to permanently alter the gem coloring, as in the case of natural blue topaz. Virtually all blue topaz on the market has been subject to irradiation to turn the color of the raw stone from white to blue. Other gems often subjected to radiation treatment besides blue topaz include colored diamonds, smoky quartz, kunzites, tourmalines, and cultured pearls. Except for irradiated blue topaz, irradiated gems are usually quite difficult to detect. So much so that only the sophisticated equipment of the gem laboratories at a gemological institute can identify irradiated gem materials.