Earrings

I remember sitting in a cramped grading lab in London, the air smelling of ozone and stale coffee, staring through a loupe at two sapphires that were supposedly “identical twins.” On paper, they were a match; in reality, one had a saturation like a deep, midnight ocean and the other looked like a faded, sun-bleached … Read more

I remember sitting in the grading lab during my third year, staring through a loupe at a pair of heavy, teardrop-shaped labradorite studs. They were stunning—a deep, oily blue like the North Sea just before a storm—but as I leaned in, I noticed the client’s ears. The skin was pulled taut, a thin, angry red … Read more

I spent six years hunched over a bench in a grading lab, staring through a loupe until my eyes burned, and if there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the jewelry industry loves to wrap simple minerals in layers of expensive nonsense. You’ll see shops claiming that certain hoops set with gemstones and what … Read more

I remember sitting in the lab in Bergen, staring through a loupe at a sapphire that looked like the ocean just after a storm—that deep, bruised indigo. I’d spent hours verifying its inclusions, only to have the client call me a week later because the stone had simply vanished from its setting. It wasn’t some … Read more

I spent six years in a grading lab, hunched over a microscope until my neck ached, staring at stones that were supposed to be rare treasures but were actually just clever bits of glass. Most people think that finding the right studs and drops for coloured stones requires a massive budget or a degree in … Read more