Enticing yellow

Recently I fell in love with yellow gold; before that I have always only loved white gold. Given the gold price is fairly low at the moment it is actually a good time to get gold jewelry made. I have become such a 'yellow fan' I really wanted a yellow sapphire set in yellow gold. Pictured is the result. Photos really don't do justice.

I designed it along with a local jeweler. We decided to make the ring in mat finish. Stone looks magnificent against the mat background. I also wanted this to be a dress ring that I can wear everyday. Instead of spending money on cheaper fashion jewelry which I never feel like wearing twice, I thought its better to spend a bit more and get something made that I wouldn't get sick of wearing. It has worked so far, I wear it every day and I get so many compliments on it. And it feels special have a handmade jewelry.

Yellow sapphires are relatively inexpensive, yet so beautiful.

How do sapphires get their color?

I had a few customers enquiring about sapphire colors and the difference between ruby and sapphire. Well, I do not intend to be too technical here, but it is exciting to know a little more about these beautiful natural sapphires. I’ll try to be as clear and concise as possible. 

Firstly, sapphire and ruby both belong to the the family of corundum, which comes in all colors. All colors except red are referred to as sapphire.

Corundum in its purest state is aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃), which is a colorless sapphire. Additional elements or impurities combined with these base elements gives the breathtaking sapphire colors. 

Combination of titanium and iron makes a blue sapphire. Chromium impurities make a ruby red - various shades of pink to red are based on the amount of chromium. Existence of chromium with other elements of a blue sapphire makes a purple sapphire. Yellow sapphires are a bit more complicated. They have a few different ways of getting their color. Majority are colored by the existence of iron (I won’t discuss other methods here as it involves a lot more chemistry). Iron is also responsible for green sapphires; due to rarity green sapphires are virtually unheard of. 

As you can see iron is responsible for blue, yellow and green colors. Majority of Australian blue sapphires tend to have more of a greenish secondary hue mainly due to higher quantities of iron. 

Other than the color, all other properties such as hardness and toughness remains the same across all sapphire colors. 

We are also working on updating the website with a more descriptive content around sapphire colors. Until then hope you enjoy reading.